GIFT  OF 


Mrs.    Laura   S.   Hunt. 


384- e, 
L-434- 


A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 


A  Textbook  of  Theosophy 


BY 

C.  W.  LEADBEATER 

Author  of ' '  The  Inner  Life, " ' '  Dreams, "  < '  Clairvoyance, ' '  etc. 


THEOSOPH 


LYWOOD,  I^>§/ ANGELES 
CALIFORNIA 


1918 


THEOSOPHIGAL 
626  OAKDALE  At. 
CHICMO,  ILL 


First  Edition,  1912 
Second  Impression,    1914 
rdf  Edition,  1918 


Copyright  Eegistered 
All  Eights  Reserved 

Permission  for  translation  will  be  given 

BY 

THE  THEOSOPHICAL  PUBLISHING  HOUSE 
ADYAR,  MADRAS,  INDIA 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 

CHAPTER  I 
What  Theosophy  Is    .        .        *        V       •        •  '      1 

CHAPTER  II 
From  the  Absolute  to  Man         ,        .        .        -        9 

CHAPTER   III 
The  Formation  of  a  Solar  System       .        .        .      18 

CHAPTER  IV 
The  Evolution  of  Life        .        .        ,        .        .      28 

CHAPTER  V 
The  Constitution  of  Man     «        ,        *        .        .      41 

CHAPTER  VI 
After  Death        .        .        .        .        .        -        ,      63 

CHAPTER  VII 
Kemcarnation      .        .        .        -     .  .        •        •      97 

CHAPTER   VIII 
The  Purpose  of  Life    .        .     ...  .        .        *        .108 

CHAPTER  IX 
The  Planetary  Chains         .        ...        .    121 

CHAPTER  X 
The  Result  of  Theosophical  Study       .        .        .134 


A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

CHAPTER    I 

WHAT   THEOSOPHY   IS 

"  There  is  a  school  of  philosophy  still  in  existence 
of  which  modern  culture  has  lost  sight.'7  In  these 
words  Mr.  A.  P.  Sinnett  began  his  book,  The  Occult 
World,  the  first  popular  exposition  of  Theosophy, 
published  thirty  years  ago.  During  the  years  that 
have  passed  since  then,  many  thousands  have  learned 
wisdom  in  that  school,  yet  to  the  majority  its  teach- 
ings are  still  unknown,  and  they  can  give  only  the 
vaguest  of  replies  to  the  query,  "What  is  Theoso- 
phy?" 

Two  books  already  exist  which  answer  that  ques- 
tion: Mr.  Sinnett 's  Esoteric  Buddhism  and  Mrs.  Bes- 
ant's  The  Ancient  Wisdom.  I  have  no  thought  of 
entering  into  competition  with  those  standard  works; 
what  I  desire  is  to  present  a  statement,  as  clear  and 
simple  as  I  can  make  it,  which  may  be  regarded  as 
introductory  to  them. 

We  often  speak  of  Theosophy  as  not  in  itself  a 
religion,  but  the  truth  which  lies  behind  all  religions 
alike.  That  is  so;  yet,  from  another  point  of  view, 
we  may  surely  say  that  it  is  at  once  a  philosophy, 
a  religion  and  a  science.  It  is  a  philosophy,  be- 
cause it  puts  plainly  before  us  an  explanation  of  the 
scheme  of  evolution  of  both  the  souls  and  the  bodies 


••' • 

2  •<'A<I<EXTBOOK:  OP  THEOSOPHY 

contained,  in  our  solar  system.  It  is  a  religion  in  so 
far  as,  having  shown  us  the  course  of  ordinary  evo- 
lution, it  also  puts  before  us  and  advises  a  method 
of  shortening  that  course,  so  that  by  conscious  effort 
we  may  progress  more  directly  towards  the  goal.  It 
is  a  science,  because  it  treats  both  these  subjects  as 
matters  not  of  theological  belief  but  of  direct  knowl- 
edge obtainable  by  study  and  investigation.  It  as- 
serts that  man  has  no  need  to  trust  to  blind  faith, 
because  he  has  within  him  latent  powers  which,  when 
aroused,  enable  him  to  see  and  examine  for  himself, 
and  it  proceeds  to  prove  its  case  by  showing  how 
those  powers  may  be  awakened.  It  is  itself  a  result 
of  the  awakening  of  such  powers  by  men,  for  the 
teachings  which  it  puts  before  us  are  founded  upon 
direct  observations  made  in  the  past,  and  rendered 
possible  only  by  such  development. 

As  a  philosophy,  it  explains  to  us  that  the  solar 
system  is  a  carefully-ordered  mechanism,  a  manifes- 
tation of  a  magnificent  life,  of  which  man  is  but  a 
small  part.  Nevertheless,  it  takes  up  that  small  part 
which  immediately  concerns  us,  and  treats  it  ex- 
haustively under  three  heads  —  present,  past  and 
future. 

It  deals  with  the  present  by  describing  what  man 
really  is,  as  seen  by  means  of  developed  faculties.  It 
is  customary  to  speak  of  man  as  having  a  soul ;  Theo- 
sophy,  as  the  reeult  of  direct  investigation,  reverses 
that  dictum,  and  states  that  man  is  a  soul,  and  has  a 
body — in  fact  several  bodies,  which  are  his  vehicles 
and  instruments  in  various  worlds.  These  worlds 
are  not  separate  in  space;  they  are  simultaneously 


WHAT  THEOSOPHY  IS  3 

present  with  us,  here  and  now,  and  can  be  examined ; 
they  are  the  divisions  of  the  material  side  of  nature 
— different  degrees  of  density  in  the  aggregation  of 
matter,  as  will  presently  be  explained  in  detail.  Man 
has  an  existence  in  several  of  these,  but  is  normally 
conscious  only  of  the  lowest,  though  sometimes  in 
dreams  and  trances  he  has  glimpses  of  some  of  the 
others.  What  is  called  death  is  the  laying  aside  of 
the  vehicle  belonging  to  this  lowest  world,  but  the 
soul  or  real  man  in  a  higher  world  is  no  more 
changed  or  affected  by  this  than  the  physical  man  is 
changed  or  affected  when  he  removes  his  overcoat. 
All  this  is  a  matter,  not  of  speculation,  but  of  ob- 
servation and  experiment. 

Theosophy  has  much  to  tell  us  of  the  past  history 
of  man— of  how  in  the  course  of  evolution  he  has 
come  to  be  what  he  now  is.  This  also  is  a  matter  of 
observation,  because  of  the  fact  that  therfc  exists  an 
indelible  record  of  all  that  has  taken  place — a  sort 
of  memory  of  Nature  —  by  examining  which  the 
scenes  of  earlier  evolution  may  be  made  to  pass  be- 
fore the  eyes  of  the  investigator  as  though  they  were 
happening  at  this  moment.  By  thus  studying  the 
past  we  learn  that  man  is  divine  in  origin  and  that 
he  has  a  long  evolution  behind  him — a  double  evo- 
lution, that  of  the  life  or  soul  within,  and  that  of  the 
outer  form.  We  learn,  too,  that  the  life  of  man  as 
a  soul  is  of  what  to  us  seems  enormous  length,  and 
that  what  we  have  been  in  the  habit  of  calling  his 
life  is  in  reality  only  one  day  of  his  real  existence. 
He  has  already  lived  through  many  such  days,  and 
has  many  more  of  them  yet  before  him;  and  if  we 


4  A  TEXTBOOK  OP  THEOSOFHY 

wish  to  understand  the  real  life  and  its  object,  we 
must  consider  it  in  relation  not  only  to  this  one  day 
of  it,  which  begins  with  birth  and  ends  with  death, 
but  also  to  the  days  which  have  gone  before  and 
those  which  are  yet  to  come. 

Of  those  that  are  yet  to  come  there  is  also  much 
to  be  said,  and  on  this  subject  too  a  great  deal  of 
definite  information  is  available.  Such  information 
is  obtainable,  first,  from  men  who  have  already 
passed  much  further  along  the  road  of  evolution  than 
we,  and  have  consequently  direct  experience  of  it; 
and,  secondly,  from  inferences  drawn  from  the  ob- 
vious direction  of  the  steps  which  we  see  to  have 
been  previously  taken.  The  goal  of  this  particular 
cycle,  is  in  sight,  though  still  far  above  us ;  but  it 
would  seem  that,  even  when  that  has  been  attained, 
an  infinity  of  progress  still  lies  before  everyone  who 
is  willing  to  undertake  it. 

One  of  the  most  striking  advantages  of  Theosophy 
is  that  the  light  which  it  brings  to  us  at  once  solves 
many  of  our  problems,  clears  away  many  difficulties, 
accounts  for  the  apparent  injustices  of  life,  and  in 
all  directions  brings  order  out  of  seeming  chaos. 
Thus  while  some  of  its  teaching  is  based  upon  the 
observation  of  forces  whose  direct  working  is  some- 
what beyond  the  ken  of  the  ordinary  man  of  the 
world,  if  the  latter  will  accept  it  as  a  hypothesis  he 
will  very  soon  come  to  see  that  it  must  be  a  correct 
one,  because  it,  and  it  alone,  furnishes  a  coherent 
and  reasonable  explanation  of  the  drama  of  life 
which  is  being  played  before  him. 

The  existence  of  Perfected  Men,  and  the  possibility 


WHAT  THEOSOPHY  IS  5 

of  coming  into  touch  with  Them  and  being  taught 
by  Them,  are  prominent  among  the  great  new  truths 
which  Theosophy  brings  to  the  western  world.  An- 
other of  them  is  the  stupendous  fact  that  the  world 
is  not  drifting  blindly  into  anarchy,  but  that  its 
progress  is  under  the  control  of  a  perfectly  organ- 
ized Hierarchy,  so  that  final  failure  even  for  the 
tiniest  of  its  units  is  of  all  impossibilities  the  most 
impossible.  A  glimpse  of  the  working  of  that  Hier- 
archy inevitably  'engenders  the  desire  to  co-operate 
with  it,  to  serve  under  it,  in  however  humble  a  ca- 
pacity, and  some  time  in  the  far-distant  future  to  be 
worthy  to  join  the  outer  fringes  of  its  ranks. 

This  brings  us  to  that  aspect  of  Theosophy  which 
we  have  called  religious.  Those  who  come  to  know 
and  to  understand  these  things  are  dissatisfied  with 
the  slow  aeons  of  evolution;  they  yearn  to  become 
more  immediately  useful,  and  so  they  demand  and 
obtain  knowledge  of  the  shorter  but  steeper  Path. 
There  is  no  possibility  of  escaping  the  amount  of 
work  that  has  to  be  done.  It  is  like  carrying  a  load 
up  a  mountain;  whether  one  carries  it  straight  up  a 
steep  path  or  more  gradually  by  a  road  of  gentle 
slope,  precisely  the  same  number  of  footpounds  must 
be  exerted.  Therefore  to  do  the  same  work  in  a 
small  fraction  of  the  time  means  determined  effort. 
It  can  be  done,  however,  for  it  has  been  done ;  and 
those  who  have  done  it  agree  that  it  far  more  than 
repays  the  trouble.  The  limitation  of  the  various 
vehicles  is  thereby  gradually  transcended,  and  the 
liberated  man  becomes  an  intelligent  co-worker  in 
the  mighty  plan  for  the  evolution  of  all  beings. 


«  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

In  its  capacity  as  a  religion,  too,  Theosophy  gives 
its  followers  a  rule  of  life,  based  not  on  alleged  com- 
mands delivered  at  some  remote  period  of  the  past, 
but  on  plain  common  sense  as  indicated  by  observed 
facts.  The  attitude  of  the  student  of  Theosophy  to- 
wards the  rules  which  it  prescribes  resembles  rather 
that  which  we  adopt  to  hygienic  regulations  than 
obedience  to  religious  commandments.  We  may  say, 
if  we  wish,  that  this  thing  or  that  is  in  accordance 
with  the  divine  Will,  for  the  divine  Will  is  expressed 
in  what  we  know  as  the  laws  of  nature.  Because  that 
Will  wisely  ordereth  all  things,  to  infringe  its  laws 
means  to  disturb  the  smooth  working  of  the  scheme, 
to  hold  back  for  a  moment  that  fragment  or  tiny 
part  of  evolution,  and  consequently  to  bring  dis- 
comfort upon  ourselves  and  others.  It  is  for  that 
reason  that  the  wise  man  avoids  infringing  them — 
not  to  escape  the  imaginary  wrath  of  some  offended 
deity. 

But  if  from  a  certain  point  of  view  we  may  think 
of  Theosophy  as  a  religion,  we  must  note  two  great 
points  of  difference  between  it  and  what  is  ordinarly 
called  religion  in  the  West.  First,  it  neither  de- 
mands belief  from  its  followers,  nor  does  it  even 
speak  of  belief  in  the  sense  in  which  that  word  is 
usually  employed.  The  student  of  occult  science 
either  knows  a  thing  or  suspends  his  judgment  about 
it;  there  is  no  place  in  his  scheme  for  blind  faith. 
Naturally,  beginners  in  the  study  cannot  yet  know 
for  themselves,  so  they  are  asked  to  read  the  results 
of  the  various  observations  and  to  deal  with  them  as 
probable  hypotheses — provisionally  to  accept  and  act 


WHAT  THEOSOPHY  IS  7 

upon  them,  until  such  time  as  they  can  prove  them 
for  themselves. 

Secondly,  Theosophy  never  endeavors  to  convert 
any  man  from  whatever  religion  he  already  holds. 
On  the  contrary,  it  explains  his  religion  to  him,  and 
enables  him  to  see  in  it  deeper  meanings  than  he  has 
ever  known  before.  It  teaches  him  to  understand  it 
and  live  it  better  than  he  did,  and  in  many  cases  it 
gives  back  to  him,  on  a  higher  and  more  intelligent 
level,  the  faith  in  it  which  he  had  previously  all  but 
lost. 

Theosophy  has  its  aspect  as  a  science  also;  it  is 
in  very  truth  a  science  of  life,  a  science  of  the  soul. 
It  applies  to  everything  the  scientific  method  of  oft- 
repeated,  painstaking  observation,  and  then  tabu- 
lates the  results  and  makes  deductions  from  them.  In 
this  way  it  has  investigated  the  various  planes  of  na- 
ture, the  conditions  of  man's  consciousness  during 
life  and  after  what  is  commonly  called  death.  It 
cannot  be  too  often  repeated  that  its  statements  on 
all  these  matters  are  not  vague  guesses  or  tenets  of 
faith,  but  are  based  upon  direct  and  oft-repeated 
observation  of  what  happens.  Its  investigators  have 
dealt  also  to  a  certain  extent  with  subjects  more  in 
the  range  of  ordinary  science,  as  may  be  seen  by 
those  who  read  the  recently  issued  book  on  Occult 
Chemistry. 

Thus  we  see  that  Theosophy  combines  within  itself 
some  of  the  characteristics  of  philosophy,  religion 
and  science.  What,  it  might  be  asked,  is  its  gospel 
for  this  weary  world?  What  are  the  main  points 
which  emerge  from  its  investigations?  What  are 


8  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

the  great  facts  which  it  has  to  lay  before  humanity? 

They  have  been  well  summed  up  under  three  main 
heads. 

"  There  are  three  truths  which  are  absolute,  and 
which  cannot  be  lost,  but  yet  may  remain  silent  for 
lack  of  speech. 

"The  soul  of  man  is  immortal,  and  its  future  is 
the  future  of  a  thing  whose  growth  and  splendor  has 
no  limit. 

"The  principle  which  gives  life  dwells  in  us  and 
without  us,  is  undying  and  eternally  beneficent,  is 
not  heard  or  seen  or  smelt,  but  is  perceived  by  the 
man  who  desires  perception. 

"Each  man  is  his  own  absolute  lawgiver,  the  dis- 
penser of  glory  or  gloom  to  himself;  ;the  decreer  of 
his  life,  his  reward,  his  punishment. 

"These  truths,  which  are  as  great  as  is  life  itself, 
are  as  simple  as  the  simplest  mind  of  man." 

Put  shortly,  and  in  the  language  of  the  man  of 
the  street,  this  means  that  God  is  good,  that  man  is 
immortal,  and  that  as  we  sow  so  we  must  reap.  There 
is  a  definite  scheme  of  things;  it  is  under  intelligent 
direction  and  works  under  immutable  laws.  Man  has 
his  place  in  this  scheme  and  is  living  under  these 
laws.  If  he  understands  them  and  co-operates  with 
them,  he  will  advance  rapidly  and  will  be  happy;  if 
he  does  not  understand  them — if  wittingingly  or  un- 
wittingly, he  breaks  them,  he  will  delay  his  progress 
and  be  miserable.  These  are  not  theories,  but  proved 
facts.  Let  him  who  doubts  read  on,  and  he  will  see. 


CHAPTER   II 

FKOM  THE  ABSOLUTE  TO  MAN 

Of  the  Absolute,  the  Infinite,  the  All-embracing, 
we  can  at  our  present  stage  know  nothing,  except 
that  It  is;  we  can  say  nothing  that  is  not  a  limita- 
tion, and  therefore  inaccurate. 

In  It  are  innumerable  universes;  in  each  universe 
countless  solar  systems.  Each  solar  system  is  the  ex- 
pression of  a  mighty  Being,  whom  we  call  the  LOGOS, 
the  Word  of  God,  the  Solar  Deity.  He  is  to  it  all 
that  men  mean  by  God.  He  permeates  it;  there  is 
nothing  in  it  which  is  not  He;  it  is  the  manifesta- 
tion of  Him  in  such  matter  as  we  can  see.  Yet  He 
exits  above  it  and  outside  it,  living  a  stupendous  life 
of  His  own  among  His  Peers.  As  is  said  in  Eastern 
Scripture:  "Having  permeated  this  whole  universe 
with  on'e  fragment  of  Myself,  I  remain." 

Of  that  higher  life  of  His  we  can  know  nothing. 
But  of  the  fragment  of  His  life  which  energizes  His 
system  we  may  know  something  in  the  lower  levels 
of  its  manifestation.  We  may  not  sefe  Him,  but  we 
may  see  His  power  at  work.  No  one  who  is  clairvoy- 
ant can  be  atheistic;  the  evidence  is  too  tremendous. 

Out  of  Himself  He  has  called  this  mighty  system 
into  being.  We  who  are  in  it  are  evolving  fragments 
of  His  life,  Sparks  of  His  divine  Fire;  from  Him  we 
all  have  come;  into  Him  we  shall  all  return. 

Many  have  asked  why  He  has  done  this;  why  He 


10  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

has  emanated  from  Himself  all  this  system;  why  He 
has  sent  us  forth  to  face  the  storms  of  life.  We  can- 
not know,  nor  is  the  question  practical ;  suffice  it  that 
we  are  here,  and  we  must  do  our  best.  Yet  many 
philosophers  have  speculated  on  this  point  and  many 
suggestions  have  been  made.  The  most  beautiful  that 
I  know  is  that  of  a  Gnostic  philosopher: 

"God  is  Love,  but  Love  itself  cannot  be  perfect 
unless  it  has  those  upon  whom  it  can  be  lavished  and 
by  whom  it  can  be  returned.  Therefore  He  put 
forth  of  Himself  into  matter,  and  He  limited  His 
glory,  in  order  that  through  this  natural  and  slow 
process  of  evolution  we  might  come  into  being;  and 
we  in  turn  according  to  His  will  are  to  develop  until 
we  reach  even  His  own  level,  and  then  the  very  love 
of  God  itself  will  become  more  perfect,  because  it 
will  then  be  lavished  on  those,  His  own  children,  who 
will  fully  understand  and  return  it,  and  so  His  great 
scheme  will  be  realized  and  His  Will  be  done." 

At  what  stupendous  elevation  His  consciousness 
abides  we  know  not,  nor  can  we  know  its  true  nature 
as  it  shows  itself  there.  But  when  He  puts  Himself 
down  into  such  conditions  as  are  within  our  reach, 
His  manifestation  is  ever  threefold,  and  so  all  re- 
ligions have  imaged  Him  as  a  Trinity.  Three,  yet 
fundamentally  One;  Thre'e  Persons  (for  person 
means  a  mask)  yet  one  God,  showing  Himself  in 
those  Three  Aspects.  Three  to  us,  looking  at  Them 
from  below,  because  Their  functions  are  different; 
one  to  Him,  because  He  knows  Them  to  be  but  facets 
of  Himself. 

All  Three  of  these  Aspects  are  concerned  in  the 


FEOM  THE  ABSOLUTE  TO  MAN  '  11 

evolution  of  the  solar  system;  all  Three  are  also 
concerned  in  the  evolution  of  man.  This  evolution 
is  His  will ;  the  method  of  it  is  His  plan. 

Next  below  this  Solar  Deity,  yet  also  in  some  mys- 
terious manner  part  of  Him,  come  His  seven  Minis- 
ters, sometimes  called  the  Planetary  Spirits.  Using 
an  analogy  drawn  from  the  physiology  of  our  own 
body,  Their  relation  to  Him  is  like  that  of  the  ganglia 
or  the  nerve  centers  to  the  brain.  All  evolution 
which  comes  forth  from  Him  comes  through  one  or 
other  of  Them. 

Under  Them  in  turn  come  vast  hosts  or  orders 
of  spiritual  Beings,  whom  we  call  Angels  or  Devas. 
We  do  not  yet  know  all  the  functions  which  They 
fulfil  in  different  parts  of  this  wonderful  scheme, 
but  we  find  some  of  Them  intimately  connected  with 
the  building  of  the  system  and  the  unfolding  of  life 
within  it. 

Here  in  our  world  there  is  a  great  Official  who 
represents  the  Solar  Deity,  and  is  in  absolute  control 
of  all  the  evolution  that  takes  place  upon  this  planet. 
We  may  image  Him  as  the  true  KING  of  this  world, 
and  under  Him  are  ministers  in  charge  of  different 
departments.  One  of  these  departments  is  concerned 
with  the  evolution  of  the  different  races  of  humanity, 
so  that  for  each  great  race  there  is  a  Head  who 
founds  it,  differentiates  it  from  all  others,  and 
watches  over  its  development.  Another  department 
is  that  of  religion  and  education,  and  it  is  from  this 
that  all  the  greatest  teachers  of  history  have  come — 
that  all  religions  have  been  sent  forth.  The  great 
Official  at  the  head  of  this  department  either  comes 


12  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THESOPOHY 

Himself  or  sends  one  of  His  pupils  to  found  a  new 
religion  when  He  decides  that  one  is  needed. 

Therefore  all  religions,  at  the  time  of  their  first 
presentation  to  the  world,  have  contained  a  definite 
statement  of  the  Truth,  and  in  its  fundamentals  this 
Truth  has  been  always  the  same.  The  presentations 
of  it  have  varied  because  of  differences  in  the  races 
to  whom  it  was  offered.  The  conditions  of  civiliza- 
tion and  the  degree  of  evolution  obtained  by  various 
races  have  made  it  desirable  to  present  this  one 
Truth  in  divers  forms.  But  the  inner  Truth  is  al- 
ways the  same,  and  the  source  from  which  it  comes 
is  the  same,  feven  though  the  external  phases  may  ap- 
pear to  be  different  and  even  contradictory.  It  is 
foolish  for  men  to  wrangle  over  the  question  of  the 
superiority  of  one  teacher  or  one  form  of  teaching 
to  another,  for  the  teacher  is  always  one  sent  by  the 
Great  Brotherhood  of  Adepts,  and  in  all  its  import- 
ant points,  in  its  ethical  and  moral  principles,  the 
teaching  has  always  been  the  same. 

There  is  in  the  world  a  body  of  Truth  which  lies 
at  the  back  of  all  these  religions,  and  represents  the 
facts  of  nature  as  far  as  they  are  at  present  known 
to  man.  In  the  outer  world,  because  of  their  ignor- 
ance of  this,  people  are  always  disputing  and  argu- 
ing about  whether  there  is  a  God;  whether  man  sur- 
vives death;  whether  definite  progress  is  possible  for 
him,  and  what  is  his  relation  to  the  universe.  These 
questions  are  ever  present  in  the  mind  of  man  as 
soon  as  intelligence  is  awakened.  They  are  not  un- 
answerable, as  is  frequently  supposed;  the  answers 
to  them  are  within  the  reach  of  anyone  who  will 


FKOM  THJti  ABSOLUTE  TO  MAN  13 

make  proper  efforts  to  find  them.  The  truth  is  ob- 
tainable, and  the  conditions  of  its  attainment  are 
possible  of  achievement  by  anyone  who  will  make  the 
effort. 

In  the  earlier  stages  of  the  development  of  hu- 
manity, the  great  Officials  of  the  Hierarchy  are  pro- 
vided from  outside,  from  other  and  more  highly 
evolved  parts  of  the  system,  but  as  soon  as  men  can 
be  trained  to  the  necessary  level  of  power  and  wis- 
dom these  offices  are  held  by  them.  In  order  to  be 
fit  to  hold  such  an  office  a  man  must  raise  himself  to 
a  very  high  level,  and  must  become  what  is  called 
an  Adept — a  being  of  goodness,  power  and  wisdom 
so  great  that  He  towers  above  the  rest  of  humanity, 
for  He  has  already  attained  the  summit  of  ordinary 
human  evolution;  He  has  achieved  what  the  plan  of 
the  Deity  marked  out  for  Him  to  achieve  during  this 
age  or  dispensation.  But  His  evolution  later  on 
continues  beyond  that  level — continues  to  divinity. 

A  large  number  of  men  have  attained  the  Adept 
level — men  not  of  one  nation,  but  of  all  the  leading 
nations  of  the  world — rare  souls  who  with  indomit- 
able courage  have  stormed  the  fortresses  of  nature, 
and  captured  her  innermost  secrets,  and  so  have 
truly  earned  the  right  to  be  called  Adepts.  Among 
Them  there  are  many  degrees  and  many  lines  of  ac- 
tivity; but  always  some  of  Them  remain  within 
touch  of  our  earth  as  members  of  this  Hierarchy 
which  has  in  charge  the  administration  of  the  affairs 
of  our  world  and  of  the  spiritual  evolution  of  our 
humanity. 

This  august  body  is  often  called  the  Great  White 


14  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

Brotherhood,  but  its  members  are  not  a  community 
all  living  together.  Each  of  Them,  to  a  large  extent, 
draws  Himself  apart  from  the  world,  and  They  are 
in  constant  communication  with  one  another  and 
with  Their  Head;  but  Their  knowledge  of  higher 
forces  is  so  great  that  this  is  achieved  without  any 
necessity  for  meeting  in  the  physical  world.  In 
many  cases  They  continue  to  live  each  in  His  own 
country,  and  Their  power  remains  unsuspected 
among  those  who  live  near  Them.  Any  man  who 
will  may  attract  Their  attention,  but  he  can  do  it 
only  by  showing  himself  worthy  of  Their  notice. 
None  need  fear  that  his  efforts  will  pass  unnoticed; 
guch  oversight  is  impossible,  for  the  man  who  is  de- 
voting himself  to  service  such  as  this,  stands  out 
from  the  rest  of  humanity  like  a  great  flame  in  a 
dark  night.  A  few  of  these  great  Adepts,  who  are 
thus  working  for  the  good  of  the  world,  are  willing 
to  take  as  apprentices  those  who  have  resolved  to 
devote  themselves  utterly  to  the  service  of  mankind; 
such  Adepts  are  called  Masters. 

One  of  these  apprentices  was  Helena  Petrovna 
Blavatsky — a  great  soul  who  was  sent  out  to  offer 
knowledge  to  the  world  some  forty  years  ago.  With 
Colonel  Henry  Steele  Olcott  she  founded  the  Theo- 
sophical  Society  for  the  spread  of  this  knowledge 
which  she  had  to  give.  Among  those  who  came  into 
contact  with  her  in  those  early  days  was  Mr.  A.  P. 
Sinnett,  the  editor  of  The  Pioneer,  and  his  keen  in- 
tellect at  once  grasped  the  magnitude  and  the  im- 
portance of  the  teaching  which  she  put  before  him. 
Although  Madame  Blavatsky  herself  had  previously 


FEOM  THE  ABSOLUTE  TO  MAN  16 

' 

written  Isis  Unveiled,  it  had  attracted  but  little  at- 
tention, and  it  was  Mr.  Sinnett  who  first  made  the 
teaching  really  available  for  western  readers  in  his 
two  books,  The  Occult  World  and  Esoteric  Bud- 
dhism. 

It  was  through  these  works  that  I  myself  first 
came  to  know  their  author,  and  afterwards  Madame 
Blavatsky  herself;  from  both  o,f  them  I  learned 
much.  When  I  asked  Madame  Blavatsky  how  on0 
could  learn  still  more,  how  one  could  make  definite 
progress  along  the  Path  which  she  pointed  out  to  us, 
she  told  me  of  the  possibility  that  other  students 
might  be  accepted  as  apprentices  by  the  great  Mas- 
ters, even  as  she  herself  had  been  accepted,  and  thai 
the  only  way  to  gain  such  acceptance  was  to  show 
oneself  worthy  of  it  by  earnest  and  altruistic  work. 
She  told  me  that  to  reach  that  goal  a  man  must  bfe 
absolutely  one-pointed  in  his  determination;  that  no 
one  who  tried  to  serve  both  God  and  Mammon  could 
ever  hope  to  succeed.  One  of  these  Masters  Himself 
has  said:  "In  order  to  succeed,  a  pupil  must  leave 
his  own  world  and  come  into  ours." 

This  means  that  he  must  cease  to  be  one  of  tb$ 
majority  who  live  for  wealth  and  power,  and  must 
join  the  tiny  minority  who  care  nothing  for  such 
things,  but  live  only  in  order  to  devote  themselves 
selflessly  to  the  good  of  the  world.  She  warned  us 
clearly  that  the  way  was  difficult  to  tread,  that  we 
should  be  misunderstood  and  reviled  by  those  who 
still  lived  in  the  world,  and  that  we  had  nothing  tft 
look  forward  to  but  the  hardest  of  hard  work;  and 
though  the  result  was  sure,  no  one  could  fortell  how 


16  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

long  it  would  take  to  arrive  at  it.  Some  of  us  ac- 
cepted these  conditions  joyfully,  and  we  have  never 
for  a  moment  regretted  the  decision. 

After  some  years  of  work  I  had  the  privilege  of 
coming  into  contact  with  these  great  Masters  of  the 
Wisdom;  from  Them  I  learnt  many  things — among 
others,  how  to  verify  for  myself  at  first  hand  most 
of  the  teachings  which  They  had  given.  So  that,  in 
this  matter,  I  write  of  what  I  know,  and  what  I 
have  seen  for  myself.  Certain  points  are  mentioned 
in  the  teaching,  for  the  verification  of  which  powers 
are  required  far  beyond  anything  which  I  have 
gained  so  far.  Of  them,  I  can  only  say  that  they  are 
consistent  with  what  I  do  know,  and  in  many  cases 
are  necessary  as  hypotheses  to  account  for  what  I 
have  seen.  They  came  to  me  along  with  the  rest  of 
the  Theosophical  system  upon  the  authority  of  these 
mighty  Teachers.  Since  then  I  have  learnt  to  ex- 
amine for  myself  by  far  the  greater  part  of  what 
I  was  told,  and  I  have  found  the  information  given 
to  me  to  be  correct  in  every  particular;  therefore  I 
am  justified  in  assuming  the  probability  that  that 
other  part,  which  as  yet  I  cannot  verify,  will  also 
prove  to  be  correct  when  I  arrive  at  its  level. 

To  attain  the  honor  of  being  accepted  as  an  ap- 
prentice of  one  of  the  Masters  of  the  Wisdom  is  the 
object  set  before  himself  by  every  earnest  Theosophi- 
cal student.  But  it  means  a  determined  effort.  There 
have  always  been  men  who  were  willing  to  make  the 
necessary  effort,  and  therefore  there  have  always 
been  men  who  knew.  The  knowledge  is  so  transcen- 


FROM  THE  ABSOLUTE  TO  MAN  17 

dent  that  when  a  man  grasps  it  fully  he  becomes 
more  than  man,  and  he  passes  beyond  our  ken. 

But  there  are  stages  in  the  acquirement  of  this 
knowledge,  and  we  may  learn  much,  if  we  will,  from 
those  who  themselves  are  still  in  process  of  learning; 
for  all  human  beings  stand  on  one  or  other  of  the 
rungs  of  the  ladder  of  evolution.  The  primitive 
stand  at  its  foot ;  we  who  are  civilized  beings  have  al- 
ready climbed  part  of  the  way.  But  though  we  can 
look  back  and  see  rungs  of  the  ladder  below 
us  which  we  have  already  passed,  we  may  also  look 
up  and  see  many  rungs  above  us  to  which  we  have 
not  yet  attained.  Just  as  men  are  standing  even 
now  on  each  of  the  rungs  below  us,  so  that  we  can 
see  the  stages  by  which  man  has  mounted,  so  also 
are  there  men  standing  on  each  of  the  rungs  above 
us,  so  that  from  studying  them  we  may  see  how  man 
shall  mount  in  the  future.  Precisely  because  we  see 
men  on  every  step  of  this  ladder,  which  leads  up  to 
a  glory  which  as  yet  we  have  no  words  to  express, 
we  know  that  the  ascent  to  that  glory  is  possible  for 
us.  Those  who  stand  high  above  us,  so  high  that 
They  seem  to  us  as  gods  in  Their  marvellous  knowl- 
edge and  power,  tell  us  that  They  stood  not  long 
since  where  we  are  standing  now,  and  They  indicate 
to  us  clearly  the  steps  which  lie  between,  which  we 
also  must  tread  if  we  would  be  as  They. 


CHAPTER    m 

THE  FORMATION  OF  A  SOLAR  SYSTEM 

The  beginning  of  the  universe  (if  ever  it  had  a 
beginning)  is  beyond  our  ken.  At  the  earliest  point 
of  history  that  we  can  reach,  the  two  great  opposites 
of  Spirit  and  matter,  of  life  and  form,  are  already 
in  full  activity.  We  find  that  the  ordinary  concep- 
tion of  matter  needs  a  revision,  for  what  are  com- 
monly called  force  and  matter  are  in  reality  only 
two  varieties  of  Spirit  at  different  stages  in  evolu- 
tion, and  the  real  matter  or  basis  of  everything  lies 
in  the  background  un perceived.  A  French  scientist 
has  recently  said:  " There  is  no  matter;  there  are 
nothing  but  holes  in  the  sether." 

This  also  agrees  with  the  celebrated  theory  of 
Professor  Osborne  Reynolds.  Occult  investigation 
shows  this  to  be  the  correct  view,  and  in  that  way 
explains  what  Oriental  sacred  books  mean  when  they 
gay  that  matter  is  an  illusion. 

The  ultimate  root-matter  as  seen  at  our  level  is 
what  scientists  call  the  fether  of  space.*  To  every 
Physical  sense  the  space  occupied  by  it  appears 
empty,  yet  in  reality  this  aether  is  far  denser  than 
anything  of  which  we  can  conceive.  Its  density  is 
defined  by  Professor  Reynolds  as  being  ten  thousand 

*  This  has  been  described  in  Occult  Chemistry  under  the 
mame  of  koilon 


THE  FOEMATION  OF  A  SOLAR  SYSTEM  19 

times  greater  than  that  of  water,  and  its  mean  pres- 
sure as  seven  hundred  and  fifty  thousand  tons  to 
the  square  inch. 

This  substance  is  perceptible  only  to  highly  de- 
veloped clairvoyant  power.  We  must  assume  a  time 
(though  we  have  no  direct  knowledge  on  this  point) 
when  this  substance  filled  all  space.  We  must  also 
suppose  that  some  great  Being  (not  the  Deity  of  a 
solar  system,  but  some  Being  almost  infinitely  higher 
than  that)  changed  this  condition  of  rest  by  pouring 
out  His  spirit  or  force  into  a  certain  section  of  this 
matter,  a  section  of  the  size  of  a  whole  universe.  The 
effect  of  the  introduction  of  this  force  is  as  that  of  the 
blowing  of  a  mighty  breath;  it  has  formed  within 
this  aether  an  incalculable  number  of  tiny  spherical 
bubbles,*  and  these  bubbles  are  the  ultimate  atoms 
of  which  what  we  call  matter  is  composed.  They 
are  not  the  atoms  of  the  chemist,  nor  even  the  ulti- 
mate atoms  of  the  physical  world.  They  stand  at  a 
far  higher  level,  and  what  are  usually  called  atoms 
are  composed  of  vast  aggregations  of  these  bubbles, 
as  will  be  seen  later. 

When  the  Solar  Deity  begins  to  make  His  system, 
He  finds  ready  to  His  hand  this  material — this  in- 
finite mass  of  tiny  bubbles  which  can  be  built  up  into 
various  kinds  of  matter  as  we  know  it.  He  com- 
mences by  defining  the  limit  of  His  field  of  activity, 
a  vast  sphere  whose  circumference  is  far  larger  than 
the  orbit  of  the  outermost  of  His  future  planets. 
Within  the  limit  of  that  sphere  He  sets  up  a  kind  of 

*  The  bubbles  are  spoken  of  in  The  Secret  Doctrin*  as  the 
holes  which  Fohat  digs  in  space 


20  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

gigantic  vortex — a  motion  which  sweeps  together  all 
the  bubbles  into  a  vast  central  mass,  the  material  of 
the  nebula  that  is  to  be. 

Into  this  vast  revolving  sphere  He  sends  forth 
successive  impulses  of  force,  gathering  together  the 
bubbles  into  ever  more  and  more  complex  aggrega- 
tions, and  producing  in  this  way  seven  gigantic  in- 
terpenetrating worlds  of  matter  of  different  degrees 
of  density,  all  concentric  and  all  occupying  the  same 
space. 

Acting  through  His  Third  Aspect  He  sends  forth 
into  this  stupendous  sphere  the  first  of  these  impulses. 
It  sets  up  all  through  the  sphere  a  vast  number  of  tiny 
vortices,  each  of  which  draws  into  itself  forty-nine 
bubbles  and  arranges  them  in  a  certain  shape.  These 
little  groupings  of  bubbles  so  formed  are  the  atoms 
of  the  second  of  the  interpenetrating  worlds.  The 
whole  number  of  the  bubbles  is  not  used  in  this  way, 
sufficient  being  left  in  the  dissociated  state  to  act  as 
atoms  for  the  first  and  highest  of  these  worlds.  In 
due  time  comes  the  second  impulse,  which  seizes  upon 
nearly  all  these  forty-nine  bubble  atoms  (leaving 
only  enough  to  provide  atoms  for  the  second  world), 
draws  them  back  into  itself  and  then,  throwing  them 
out  again,  sets  up  among  them  vortices,  each  of 
which  holds  within  itself  2,401  bubbles  (492).  These 
form  the  atoms  of  the  third  world.  Again  after  a 
time  comes  a  third  impulse,  which  in  the  same  way 
seizes  upon  nearly  all  these  2,401  bubble  atoms, 
draws  them  back  again  into  their  original  form,  and 
again  throws  them  outward  once  more  as  the  atoms 
of  the  fourth  world — each  atom  containing  this  time 


THE  FORMATION  OF  A  SOLAR  SYSTEM  21 

493  bubbles.  This  process  is  repeated  until  the  sixth 
of  these  successive  impulses  has  built  the  atom  of  the 
seventh  or  lowest  world — that  atom  containing  49 6 
of  the  original  bubbles. 

This  atom  of  the  seventh  world  is  the  ultimate 
atom  of  the  physical  world — not  any  of  the  atoms 
of  which  chemists  speak,  but  that  ultimate  out  of 
which  all  their  atoms  are  made.  We  have  at  this 
stage  arrived  at  that  condition  of  affairs  in  which 
the  vast  whirling  sphere  contains  within  itself  seven 
types  of  matter,  all  one  in  essence,  because  all  built 
of  the  same  kind  of  bubbles,  but  differing  in  their 
degree  of  density.  All  these  types  are  freely  inter- 
mingled, so  that  specimens  of  each  type  would  be 
found  in  a  small  portion  of  the  sphere  taken  at  ran- 
dom in  any  part  of  it,  with,  however,  a  general  ten- 
dency of  the  heavier  atoms  to  gravitate  more  and 
more  towards  the  center. 

The  seventh  impulse  sent  out  from  the  Third  As- 
pect of  the  Deity  does  not,  as  before,  draw  back  the 
physical  atoms  which  were  last  made  into  the  or- 
iginal dissociated  bubbles,  but  draws  them  together 
into  certain  aggregations,  thus  making  a  number  of 
different  kinds  of  what  may  be  called  proto-elements, 
and  these  again  are  joined  together  into  the  various 
forms  which  are  known  to  science  as  chemical  ele- 
ments. The  making  of  these  extends  over  a  long 
period  of  ages,  and  they  are  made  in  a  certain  defi- 
nite order  by  the  interaction  of  several  forces,  as  is 
correctly  indicated  in  Sir  William  Crookes'  paper  on 
The  Genesis  of  the  Elements.  Indeed  the  process  of 


22  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

their  making  is  not  even  now  concluded;  uranium  is 
the  latest  and  heaviest  element  so  far  as  we  know, 
but  others  still  more  complicated  may  perhaps  be 
produced  in  the  future. 

As  ages  roll  on  the  condensation  increased,  and 
presently  the  stage  of  a  vast  glowing  nebula  was 
reached.  As  it  cooled,  still  rapidly  rotating,  it  flat- 
tened into  a  huge  disc  and  gradually  broke  up  into 
rings  surrounding  a  central  body — an  arrangement 
not  unlike  that  which  Saturn  exhibits  at  the  present 
day,  though  on  a  far  larger  scale.  As  the  time  drew 
near  when  the  planets  would  be  required  for  the 
purposes  of  evolution,  the  Deity  set  up  somewhere 
in  the  thickness  of  each  ring  a  subsidiary  vortex,  into 
which  a  great  deal  of  the  matter  of  the  ring  was  by 
degrees  collected.  The  collisions  of  the  gathered  frag- 
ments caused  a  revival  of  the  heat,  and  the  resulting 
planet  was  for  a  long  time  a  mass  of  glowing  gas. 
Little  by  little  it  cooled  once  more,  until  it  became 
fit  to  be  the  theatre  of  life  such  as  ours.  Thus  were 
all  the  planets  formed. 

Almost  all  the  matter  of  those  interpenetrating 
worlds  was  by  this  time  concentrated  into  the  newly- 
formed  planets.  Each  of  them  was  and  is  composed 
of  all  those  different  kinds  of  matter.  The  earth 
upon  which  we  are  now  living  is  not  merely  a  great 
ball  of  physical  matter,  built  of  the  atoms  of  that 
lowest  world,  but  has  also  attached  to  it  an  abundant 
supply  of  matter  of  the  sixth,  the  fifth,  the  fourth 
and  other  worlds.  It  is  well-known  to  all  students 
of  science  that  particles  of  matter  never  actually 


THE  FORMATION  OF  A  SOLAE  SYSTEM  23 

touch  one  another,  even  in  the  hardest  of  substances. 
The  spaces  between  them  are  always  far  greater  in 
proportion  than  their  own  size — enormously  greater. 
So  there  is  ample  room  for  all  the  other  kinds  of 
atoms  of  all  those  other  worlds,  not  only  to  lie  be- 
tween the  atoms  of  the  denser  matter,  but  to  move 
quite  freely  among  them  and  around  them.  Conse- 
quently this  globe  upon  which  we  live  is  not  one 
world,  but  seven  interpenetrating  worlds,  all  occu- 
pying the  same  space,  except  that  the  finer  types  of 
matter  extend  further  from  the  center  than  does  the 
denser  matter. 

We  have  given  names  to  these  interpenetrating 
worlds  for  convenience  in  speaking  of  them.  No 
name  is  needed  for  the  first,  as  man  is  not  yet  in 
direct  connection  with  it ;  but  when  it  is  necessary  to 
mention  it,  it  may  be  called  the  divine  world.  The 
second  is  described  as  the  monadic,  because  in  it 
exist  those  Sparks  of  the  divine  Life  which  we  call 
the  human  Monads;  but  neither  of  these  can  be 
touched  by  the  highest  clairvoyant  investigations  at 
present  possible  for  us.  The  third  sphere,  whose 
atoms  contain  2,401  bubbles,  is  called  the  spiritual 
world,  because  in  it  functions  the  highest  Spirit  in 
man  as  now  constituted.  The  fourth  is  the  intui- 
tional world,*  because  from  it  come  the  highest  intui- 
tions. The  fifth  is  the  mental  world,  because  of  its 
matter  is  built  the  mind  of  man.  The  sixth  is  called 
the  emotional  or  astral  world,  because  the  emotions 
of  man  cause  undulations  in  its  matter.  (The  name 

*  Previously  called  in  Theosophical  literature  the  buddhic  plane. 


24  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

astral  was  given  to  it  by  mediaeval  alchemists,  be- 
cause its  matter  is  starry  or  shining  as  compared  to 
that  of  the  denser  world).  The  seventh  world,  com- 
posed of  the  type  of  matter  which  we  see  all  around 
us,  is  called  the  physical. 

The  matter  of  which  all  these  interpenetrating 
worlds  are  built  is  essentially  the  same  matter,  but 
differently  arranged  and  of  different  degrees  of 
density.  Therefore  the  rates  at  which  these  various 
types  of  matter  normally  vibrate  differ  also.  They 
may  be  considered  as  a  vast  gamut  of  undulations 
consisting  of  many  octaves.  The  physical  matter 
uses  a  certain  number  of  the  lowest  of  these  octaves, 
the  astral  matter  another  group  of  octaves  just 
above  that,  the  mental  matter  a  still  further  group, 
and  so  on. 

Not  only  has  each  of  these  worlds  its  own  type  of 
matter;  it  has  also  its  own  set  of  aggregations  of 
that  matter — its  own  substances.  In  each  world  we 
arrange  these  substances  in  seven  classes  according  to 
the  rate  at  which  their  molecules  vibrate.  Usually, 
but  not  invariably,  the  slower  oscillation  involves 
also  a  larger  molecule — a  molecule,  that  is,  built  up 
by  a  special  arrangement  of  the  smaller  molecules  of 
the  next  higher  subdivision.  The  application  of  heat 
increases  the  size  of  the  molecules  and  also  quickens 
and  amplifies  their  undulation,  so  that  they  cover 
more  ground,  and  the  object  as  a  whole  expands, 
until  the  point  is  reached  where  the  aggregation  of 
molecules  breaks  up,  and  the  latter  passes  from  one 
condition  to  that  next  above  it.  In  the  matter  of  the 
physical  world  the  seven  subdivisions  are  represented 


THE  FOBMATION  OP  A  SOLAE  SYSTEM  25 

by  seven  degrees  of  density  of  matter,  to  which,  be- 
ginning from  below  upwards,  we  give  the  names 
solid,  liquid,  gaseous,  etheric,  super-etheric,  sub- 
atomic and  atomic. 

The  atomic  subdivision  is  one  in  which  all  forms 
•are  built  by  the  compression  into  certain  shapes  of 
the  physical  atoms,  without  any  previous  collection 
of  these  atoms  into  blocks  or  molecules.  Typifying 
the  physical  ultimate  atom  for  the  moment  by  a 
brick,  any  form  in  the  atomic  subdivision  would  be 
made  by  gathering  together  some  of  the  bricks,  and 
building  them  into  a  certain  shape.  In  order  to  make 
matter  for  the  next  lower  subdivision,  a  certain  num- 
ber of  the  bricks  (atoms)  would  first  be  gathered  to- 
gether and  cemented  into  small  blocks  of  say  four 
bricks  each,  five  bricks  each,  six  bricks  or  seven 
bricks;  and  then  these  blocks  so  made  would  be  used 
as  building-stones.  For  the  next  subdivision  several 
of  the  blocks  of  the  second  subdivision  cemented  to- 
gether in  certain  shapes  would  form  building-stones, 
and  so  on  to  the  lowest. 

To  transfer  any  substance  from  the  solid  condi- 
tion to  the  liquid  (that  is  to  say,  to  melt  it)  is  to 
increase  the  vibration  of  its  compound  molecules 
until  at  last  they  are  shaken  apart  into  the  simpler 
molecules  of  which  they  were  built.  This  process 
can  in  all  cases  be  repeated  again  and  again  until 
finally  any  and  every  physical  substance  can  be  re- 
duced to  the  ultimate  atoms  of  the  physical  world. 

Each  of  these  worlds  has  its  inhabitants,  whose 
senses  are  normally  capable  of  responding  to  the 
undulations  of  their  own  world  only.  A  man  living 


26  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

(as  we  are  all  doing)  in  the  physical  world  sees, 
hears,  feels,  by  vibrations  connected  with  the  physi- 
cal matter  around  him.  He  is  equally  surrounded 
by  the  astral  and  mental  and  other  worlds  which  are 
interpenetrating  his  own  denser  world,  but  of  them 
he  is  normally  unconscious,  because  his  senses  can- 
not respond  to  the  oscillations  of  their  matter,  just 
as  our  physical  eyes  cannot  see  by  the  vibrations  of 
ultra-violet  light,  although  scientific  experiments 
show  that  they  exist,  and  there  are  other  conscious- 
nesses with  differently-formed  organs  who  can  see  by 
them.  A  being  living  in  the  astral  world  might  be 
occupying  the  very  same  space  as  a  being  living  in 
the  physical  world,  yet  each  would  be  entirely  un- 
conscious of  the  other  and  would  in  no  way  imp'ede 
the  free  movement  of  the  other.  The  same  is  true  of 
all  the  other  worlds.  We  are  at  this  moment  sur- 
rounded by  these  worlds  of  finer  matter,  as  close  to 
us  as  the  world  we  see,  and  their  inhabitants  are 
passing  through  us  and  about  us,  but  we  are  entirely 
unconscious  of  them. 

Since  our  evolution  is  centered  at  present  upon 
this  globe  which  we  call  the  earth,  it  is  in  connection 
with  it  only  that  we  shall  be  speaking  of  these  higher 
worlds,  so  in  future  when  I  use  the  term  "astral 
world "  I  shall  mean  by  it  the  astral  part  of  our 
own  globe  only,  and  not  (as  heretofore)  the  astral 
part  of  the  whole  solar  system.  This  astral  part  of 
our  own  world  is  also  a  globe,  but  of  astral  matter. 
It  occupies  the  same  place  as  the  globe  which  we  see, 
but  its  matter  (being  so  much  lighter)  extends  out 
into  space  on  all  sides  of  us  further  than  does  the 


THE  FOEMATION  OF  A  SOLAE  SYSTEM  27 

atmosphere  of  the  earth — a  great  deal  further.  It 
stretches  to  a  little  less  than  the  mean  distance  of  the 
moon,  so  that  though  the  two  physical  globes,  the 
earth  and  the  moon,  are  nearly  240,000  miles  apart, 
the  astral  globes  of  these  two  bodies  touch  one  an- 
other when  the  moon  is  in  perigee,  but  not  when  she 
is  in  apogee.  I  shall  apply  the  term  "mental  world " 
to  the  still  larger  globe  of  mental  matter  in  the  midst 
of  which  our  physical  earth  exists.  When  we  come 
to  the  still  higher  globes  we  have  spheres  large 
enough  to  touch  the  corresponding  spheres  of  other 
planets  in  the  system,  though  their  matter  also  is 
just  as  much  about  us  here  on  the  surface  of  the 
solid  earth  as  that  of  the  others.  All  these  globes  of 
finer  matter  are  a  part  of  us,  and  are  all  revolving 
round  the  sun  with  their  visible  part.  The  student 
will  do  well  to  accustom  himself  to  think  of  our 
earth  as  the  whole  of  this  mass  of  interpenetrating 
worlds — not  only  the  comparatively  small  physical 
ball  in  the  center  of  it. 


CHAPTER    IV 

THE  EVOLUTION  OF  LIFE 

All  the  impulses  of  life  which  I  have  described  as 
building  the  interpenetrating  worlds  come  forth  from 
the  Third  Aspect  of  the  Deity.  Hence  in  the  Chris- 
tian scheme  that  Aspect  is  called  "the  Giver  of 
Life,"  the  Spirit  who  brooded  over  the  face  of  the 
waters  of  space.  In  Theosophical  literature  these 
impulses  are  usually  taken  as  a  whole,  and  called 
the  first  outpouring. 

When  the  worlds  had  been  prepared  to  this  extent, 
and  most  of  the  chemical  elements  already  existed, 
the  second  outpouring  of  life  took  place,  and  this 
came  from  the  Second  Aspect  of  the  Deity.  It 
brought  with  it  the  power  of  combination.  In  all 
the  worlds  it  found  existing  what  may  be  thought  of 
as  elements  corresponding  to  those  worlds.  It  pro- 
ceeded to  combine  those  elements  into  organisms 
which  it  then  ensouled,  and  in  this  way  it  built  up 
the  seven  kingdoms  of  nature.  Theosophy  recognizes 
seven  kingdoms,  because  it  regards  man  as  separate 
from  the  animal  kingdom,  and  it  takes  into  account 
several  stages  of  'evolution  which  are  unseen  by  the 
physical  eye,  and  gives  to  them  the  mediaeval  name 
of  "elemental  kingdoms. " 

The  divine  Life  pours  itself  into  matter  from 
above,  and  its  whole  course  may  be  thought  of  in 
two  stages — the  gradual  assumption  of  grosser  and 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  LIFE  29 

grosser  matter,  and  then  the  gradual  casting  off 
again  of  the  vehicles  which  have  been  assumed.  The 
earliest  level  upon  which  its  vehicles  can  be  scien- 
tifically observed  is  the  mental — the  fifth  counting 
from  the  finer  to  the  grosser,  the  first  on  which  there 
are  separated  globes.  In  practical  study  it  is  found 
convenient  to  divide  this  mental  world  into  two 
parts,  which  we  call  the  higher  and  the  lower  accord- 
ing to  the  degree  of  density  of  their  matter.  The 
higher  consists  of  the  three  finer  subdivisions  of 
mental  matter;  the  lower  part  of  the  other  four. 

When  the  outpouring  reaches  the  higher  mental 
world  it  draws  together  the  ethereal  elements  there, 
combines  them  into  what  at  that  level  correspond  to 
substances,  and  of  these  substances  builds  forms 
which  it  inhabits.  We  call  this  the  first  elemental 
kingdom. 

After  a  long  period  of  evolution  through  different 
forms  at  that  level,  the  wave  of  life,  which  is  all  the 
time  pressing  steadily  downwards,  learns  to  identify 
itself  so  fully  with  those  forms  that,  instead  of  oc- 
cupying them  and  withdrawing  from  them  period- 
ically, it  is  able  to  hold  them  permanently  and  make 
them  part  of  itself,  so  that  now  from  that  level  it 
can  proceed  to  the  temporary  occupation  of  forms 
at  a  still  lower  level.  When  it  reaches  this  stage  we 
call  it  the  second  elemental  kingdom,  the  ensouling 
life  of  which  resides  upon  the  higher  mental  levels, 
while  the  vehicles  through  which  it  manifests  are  on 
the  lower. 

After  another  vast  period  of  similar  length,  it  is 
found  that  the  downward  pressure  has  caused  this 


30  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

process  to  repeat  itself;  once  more  the  life  has  iden- 
tified itself  with  its  forms,  and  has  taken  up  its  resi- 
dence upon  the  lower  mental  levels,  so  that  it  is  cap- 
able of  ensouling  bodies  in  the  astral  world.  At 
this  stage  we  call  it  the  third  elemental  kingdom. 

We  speak  of  all  these  forms  as  finer  or  grosser 
relatively  to  one  another,  but  all  of  them  are  almost 
infinitely  finer  than  any  with  which  we  are  ac- 
quainted in  the  physical  world.  Each  of  these  three 
is  a  kingdom  of  nature,  as  varied  in  the  manifesta- 
tions of  its  different  forms  of  life  as  is  the  animal  or 
vegetable  kingdom  which  we  know.  After  a  long 
period  spent  in  ensouling  the  forms  of  the  third  of 
these  elemental  kingdoms  it  identifies  itself  with 
them  in  turn,  and  so  is  able  to  ensoul  the  etheric 
part  of  the  mineral  kingdom,  and  becomes  the  life 
which  vivifies  that — for  there  is  a  life  in  the  min- 
eral kingdom  just  as  much  as  in  the  vegetable 
or  the  animal,  although  it  is  in  conditions  where  it 
cannot  manifest  so  freely.  In  the  course  of  the  min- 
eral evolution  the  downward  pressure  causes  it  to 
identify  itself  in  the  same  way  with  the  etheric  mat- 
ter of  the  physical  world,  and  from  that  to  ensoul 
the  denser  matter  of  such  minerals  as  are  perceptible 
to  our  senses. 

In  the  mineral  kingdom  we  include  not  only  what 
are  usually  called  minerals,  but  also  liquids,  gases 
and  many  etheric  substances  the  existence  of  which 
is  unknown  to  western  science.  All  the  matter  of 
which  we  know  anything  is  living  matter,  and  the 
life  which  it  contains  is  always  evolving.  "When  it 
has  reached  the  central  point  of  the  mineral  stage 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  LIFE  31 

the  downward  pressure  ceases,  and  is  replaced  by  an 
upward  tendency;  the  outbreathing  has  ceased  and 
the  indrawing  has  begun. 

When  mineral  evolution  is  completed,  the  life  has 
withdrawn  itself  again  into  the  astral  world,  but 
bearing  with  it  all  the  results  obtained  through  its 
experiences  in  the  physical.  At  this  stage  it  ensouls 
vegetable  forms,  and  begins  to  show  itself  much  more 
clearly  as  what  we  commonly  call  life — plant-life  of 
all  kinds;  and  at  a- yet  later  stage  of  its  development 
it  leaves  the  vegetable  kingdom  and  ensouls  the  ani- 
mal kingdom.  The  attainment  of  this  level  is  the 
sign  that  it  has  withdrawn  itself  still  further,  and  is 
now  working  from  the  lower  mental  world.  In  order 
to  work  in  physical  matter  from  that  mental  world 
it  must  operate  through  the  intervening  astral  mat- 
ter; and  that  astral  matter  is  now  no  longer  part  of 
the  garment  of  the  group  soul  as  a  whole,  but  is  the 
individual  astral  body  of  the  animal  concerned,  as 
will  be  later  explained. 

In  each  of  these  kingdoms  it  not  only  passes  a 
period  of  time  which  is  to  our  ideas  almost  incredibly 
long,  but  it  also  goes  through  a  definite  course  of  evo- 
lution, beginning  from  the  lower  manifestations  of 
that  kingdom  and  ending  with  the  highest.  In  the 
vegetable  kingdom,  for  example,  the  life-force  might 
commence  its  career  by  occupying  grasses  or  mosses 
and  end  it  by  ensouling  magnificent  forest  trees.  In 
the  animal  kingdom  it  might  commence  with  mosqui- 
toes or  with  animalculse,  and  might  end  with  the 
finest  specimens  of  the  mammalia. 

The  whole  process  is  one  of  steady  evolution  from 


32  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

lower  forms  to  higher,  from  the  simpler  to  the  more 
complex.  But  what  is  evolving  is  not  primarily  the 
form,  but  the  life  within  it.  The  forms  also  evolve 
and  grow  better  as  time  passes;  but  this  is  in  order 
that  they  may  be  appropriate  vehicles  for  more  and 
more  advanced  waves  of  life.  When  the  life  has 
reached  the  highest  level  possible  in  the  animal  king- 
dom, it  may  then  pass  on  into  the  human  kingdom, 
under  conditions  which  will  presently  be  explained. 

The  outpouring  leaves  one  kingdom  and  passes  to 
another,  so  that  if  we  had  to  deal  with  only  one  wave 
of  this  outpouring  we  could  have  in  existence  only 
one  kingdom  at  a  time.  But  the  Deity  sends  out  a 
constant  succession  of  these  waves,  so  that  at  any 
given  time  we  find  a  number  of  them  simultaneously 
in  operation.  We  ourselves  represent  one  such  wave ; 
but  we  find  evolving  alongside  us  another  wave  which 
ensouls  the  animal  kingdom — a  wave  which  came  out 
from  the  Deity  one  stage  later  than  we  did.  We  find 
also  the  vegetable  kingdom,  which  represents  a  third 
wave,  and  the  mineral  kingdom,  which  represents  a 
fourth;  and  occultists  know  the  existence  all  round 
us  of  three  elemental  kingdoms,  which  represent  the 
fifth,  sixth  and  seventh  waves.  All  these,  however, 
are  successive  ripples  of  the  same  great  outpouring 
from  the  Second  Aspect  of  the  Deity. 

W'e  have  here,  then,  a  scheme  of  evolution  in 
which  the  divine  Life  involves  itself  more  and  more 
deeply  in  matter,  in  order  that  through  that  matter 
it  may  receive  vibrations  which  could  not  otherwise 
affect  it — impacts  from  without,  which  by  degrees 
arouse  "within  it  rates  of  undulation  corresponding 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  LIFE  33 

to  their  own,  so  that  it  learns  to  respond  to  them. 
Later  on  it  learns  of  itself  to  generate  these  rates  of 
undulation,  and  so  becomes  a  being  possessed  of 
spiritual  powers. 

We  may  presume  that  when  this  outpouring  of  life 
originally  came  forth  from  the  Deity,  at  some  level 
altogether  beyond  our  power  of  cognition,  it  may 
perhaps  have  been  homogeneous;  but  when  it  first 
comes  within  practical  cognizance,  when  it  is  itself 
in  the  intuitional  world,  but  is  ensouling  bodies  made 
of  the  matter  of  the  higher  mental  world,  it  is  al- 
ready not  one  huge  world-soul,  but  many  souls.  Let 
us  suppose  a  homogeneous  outpouring,  which  may  be 
considered  as  one  vast  soul,  at  one  end  of  the  scale ; 
at  the  other,  when  humanity  is  reached,  we  find  that 
one  vast  soul  broken  up  into  millions  of  the  compara- 
tively little  souls  of  individual  men.  At  any  stage 
between  these  two  extremes  we  find  an  intermediate 
condition,  the  immense  world-soul  already  subdi- 
vided, but  not  to  the  utmost  limit  of  possible  subdi- 
vision. 

Each  man  is  a  soul,  but  not  each  animal  or  each 
plant.  Man,  as  a  soul,  can  manifest  through  only 
one  body  at  a  time  in  the  physical  world,  whereas 
one  animal  soul  manifests  simultaneously  through  a 
number  of  animal  bodies,  one  plant-soul  through  a 
number  of  separate  plants.  A  lion,  for  example,  is 
not  a  permanently  separate  entity  in  the  same  way 
as  a  man  is.  When  the  man  dies — that  is,  when  he 
as  a  soul  lays  aside  his  physical  bodyi — he  remains 
himself  exactly  as  he  was  before,  an  entity  separate 
from  all  other  entities.  When  the  lion  dies,  that 


34  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

which  has  been  the  separate  soul  of  him  is  poured 
back  into  the  mass  from  which  it  came  —  a  mass 
which  is  at  the  same  time  providing  the  souls  for 
many  othei?  lions.  To  such  a  mass  we  give  the  name 
of  ' i  group-soul. ' ' 

To  such  a  group-soul  is  attached  a  considerable 
number  of  lion  bodies — let  us  say  a  hundred.  Each 
of  those  bodies  while  it  lives  has  its  hundredth  part 
of  the  group-soul  attached  to  it,  and  for  the  time 
being  this  is  apparently  quite  separate,  so  that  the 
lion  is  as  much  an  individual  during  his  physical 
life  as  the  man;  but  he  is  not  a  permanent  indi- 
vidual. When  he  dies  the  soul  of  him  flows  back 
into  the  group-soul  to  which  it  belongs,  and  that 
identical  lion-soul  cannot  be  separated  again  from 
the  group. 

A  useful  analogy  may  help  comprehension.  Im- 
agine the  group-soul  to  be  represented  by  the  water 
in  a  bucket,  and  the  hundred  lion  bodies  by  a  hun- 
dred tumblers.  As  each  tumbler  is  dipped  into  the 
bucket  it  takes  out  from  it  a  tumblerful  of  water 
(the  separate  soul).  That  water  for  the  time  being 
takes  the  shape  of  the  vehicle  which  it  fills,  and  is 
temporarily  separate  from  the  water  which  remains 
in  the  bucket,  and  from  the  water  in  the  other  tum- 
blers. 

Now  put  into  each  of  the  hundred  tumblers  some 
kind  of  coloring  matter  or  some  kind  of  flavoring. 
That  will  represent  the  qualities  developed  by  its 
experiences  in  the  separate  soul  of  the  lion  during 
its  lifetime.  Pour  back  the  water  from  the  tumbler 
into  the  bucket;  that  represents  the  death  of  the 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  LIFE  35 

lion.  The  coloring  matter  or  the  flavoring  will  be 
distributed  through  the  whole  of  the  water  in  the 
bucket,  but  will  be  a  much  fainter  coloring,  a  much 
less  pronounced  flavor  when  thus  distributed  than 
it  was  when  confined  in  one  tumbler.  The  qualities 
developed  by  the  experience  of  one  lion  attached  to 
that  group-soul  are  therefore  shared  by  the  entire 
group-  soul  but  in  a  much  lower  degree. 

We  may  take  out  another  tumblerful  of  water 
from  that  bucket,  but  we  can  never  again  get  ex- 
actly the  same  tumblerful  after  it  has  once  been 
mingled  with  the  rest.  Every  tumblerful  taken  from 
that  bucket  in  the  future  will  contain  some  traces 
of  the  coloring  or  flavoring  put  into  each  tumbler 
whose  contents  have  been  returned  to  the  bucket. 
Just  so  the  qualities  developed  by  the  experience 
of  a  single  lion  will  become  the  common  property 
of  all  lions  who  are  in  the  future  to  be  born 
from  that  group-soul,  though  in  a  lesser  degree  than 
that  in  which  they  existed  in  the  individual  lion 
who  developed  them. 

That  is  the  explanation  of  inherited  instincts;  that 
is  why  the  duckling  which  has  been  hatched  by  a 
hen  takes  to  the  water  instantly  without  needing  to 
be  shown^how  to  swim;  why  the  chicken  just  out 
of  its  shell  will  cower  at  the  shadow  of  a  hawk; 
why  a  bird  which  has  been  artificially  hatched,  and 
has  never  seen  a  nest,  nevertheless  knows  how  to 
make  one,  and  makes  it  according  to  the  traditions 
of  its  kind. 

Lower  down  the  scale  of  animal  life  enormous 
numbers  of  bodies  are  attached  to  a  single  group- 


36  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

soul — countless  millions,  for  example,  in  the  case 
of  some  of  the  smaller  insects;  but  as  we  rise  in  the 
animal  kingdom  the  number  of  bodies  attached  to  a 
single  group-soul  becomes  smaller  and  smaller,  and 
therefore  the  differences  between  individuals  become 
greater. 

Thus  the  group-souls,  gradually  break  up.  Return- 
ing to  the  symbol  of  the  bucket,  as  tumbler  after 
tumbler  of  water  is  withdrawn  from  it,  tinted  with 
some  sort  of  coloring  matter  and  returned  to  it,  the 
whole  bucketful  of  water  gradually  becomes  richer 
in  color.  Suppose  that  by  imperceptible  degrees  a 
kind  of  vertical  film  forms  itself  across  the  center 
of  the  bucket,  and  gradually  solidifies  itself  into  a 
division,  so  that  we  have  now  a  right  half  and  a 
left  half  to  the  bucket,  and  each  tumblerful  of  water 
which  is  taken  out  is  returned  always  to  the  same 
half  from  which  it  came. 

Then  presently  a  difference  will  be  set  up,  and 
the  liquid  in  one  half  of  the  bucket  will  no  longer 
be  the  same  as  that  in  the  other.  We  have  then 
practically  two  buckets,  and  when  this  stage  is 
reached  in  a  group-soul  it  splits  into  two,  as  a  cell 
separates  by  fission.  In  this  way,  as  the  experience 
grows  ever  richer,  the  group -souls  grow  smaller  but 
more  numerous,  until  at  the  highest  point  we  arrive  at 
man  with  his  single  individual  soul,  which  no  longer 
returns  into  a  group  but  remains  always  separate. 

One  of  the  life-waves  is  vivifying  the  whole  of  a 
kingdom;  but  not  every  group-soul  in  that  life- 
wave  will  pass  through  the  whole  of  that  kingdom 
from  the  bottom  to  the  top.  If  in  the  vegetable 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  LIFE  37 

kingdom  a  certain  group-soul  has  ensouled  forest 
tre'es,  when  it  passes  on  into  the  animal  kingdom  it 
will  omit  all  the  lower  stages — that  is,  it  will  never 
inhabit  insects  or  reptiles,  but  will  begin  at  once  at 
the  level  of  the  lower  mammalia.  The  insects  and 
reptiles  will  be  vivified  by  group-souls  which  have 
for  some  reason  left  the  vegetable  kingdom  at  a 
much  lower  level  than  the  forest  tree.  In  the  same 
way  the  group-soul  which  has  reached  the  highest 
levels  of  the  animal  kingdom  will  not  individualize 
into  primitive  savages,  but  into  men  of  somewhat 
higher  type,  the  primitive  savages  being  recruited 
from  group-souls  which  have  left  the  animal  kingdom 
at  a  lower  level. 

Group-souls  at  any  level  or  at  all  levels  arrange 
themselves  into  seven  great  types,  according  to  the 
Minister  of  the  Deity  through  whom  their  life  has 
poured  forth.  These  types  are  clearly  distinguish- 
able in  all  the  kingdoms,  and  the  successive  forms 
taken  by  any  one  of  them  form  a  connected  series, 
so  that  animals,  vegetables,  minerals  and  the  varie- 
ties of  the  elemental  creatures  may  all  be  arranged 
into  seven  great  groups,  and  the  life  coming  along 
one  of  those  lines  will  not  diverge  into  any  of  the 
others. 

No  detailed  list  has  yet  be'en  made  of  the  animals, 
plants  or  minerals  from  this  point  of  view ;  but  it  is 
certain  that  the  life  which  is  found  ensouling  a  min- 
eral of  a  particular  type  will  never  vivify  a  mineral 
of  any  other  type  than  its  own,  though  within  that 
type  it  may  vary.  When  it  passes  on  to  the  vegeta- 
ble and  animal  kingdoms  it  will  inhabit  vegetables 


38  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

and  animals  of  that  type  and  of  no  other;  and  when 
it  eventually  reaches  humanity  it  will  individualize 
into  men  of  that  type  and  of  no  other. 

The  method  of  individualization  is  the  raising  of 
the  soul  of  a  particular  animal  to  a  level  so  much 
higher  than  that  attained  by  its  group-soul  that  it 
can  no  longer  return  to  the  latter.  This  cannot  be 
done  with  any  animal,  but  only  with  those  whose 
brain  is  developed  to  a  certain  level,  and  the  method 
usually  adopted  to  acquire  such  mental  development 
is  to  bring  the  animal  into  close  contact  with  man. 
Individualization,  therefore,  is  possible  only  for  do- 
mestic animals,  and  only  for  certain  kinds  even  of 
those.  At  the  head  of  each  of  the  seven  types  stands 
one  kind  of  domestic  animal — the  dog  for  one,  the 
cat  for  another,  the  elephant  for  a  third,  the  monkey 
for  a  fourth,  and  so  on.  The  wild  animals  can  all 
be  arranged  on  seven  lines  leading  up  to  the  do- 
mestic animals;  for  example,  the  fox  and  the  wolf 
are  obviously  on  the  same  lin'e  with  the  dog,  while 
the  lion,  the  tiger  and  the  leopard  equally  obviously 
lead  up  to  the  domestic  cat;  so  that  the  group-soul 
animating  a  hundred  lions  mentioned  some  time  ago 
might  at  a  later  stage  of  its  evolution  have  divided 
into,  let  us  say,  five  group-souls  each  animating 
twenty  cats. 

The  life-wave  spends  a  long  period  of  time  in 
each  kingdom;  we  are  now  only  a  little  past  the 
middle  of  such  an  aeon,  and  consequently  the  con- 
ditions are  not  favorable  for  the  achievement  of  that 
individualization  which  normally  comes  only  at  the 
end  of  a  period.  Rare  instances  of  such  attainment 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  LIFE  39 

may  occasionally  be  observed  on  the  part  of  some 
animal  much  in  advance  of  the  average.  Close  as- 
sociation with  man  is  necessary  to  produce  this  re- 
sult. The  animal  if  kindly  treated  develops  devoted 
affection  for  his  human  friend,  and  also  unfolds 
his  intellectual  powers  in  trying  to  understand  that 
friend  and  to  anticipate  his  wishes.  In  addition  to 
this,  the  emotions  and  the  thoughts  of  the  man  act 
constantly  upon  those  of  the  animal,  and  tend  to 
raise  him  to  a  higher  level  both  emotionally  and  in- 
tellectually. Under  favorable  circumstances  this  de- 
velopment may  proceed  so  far  as  to  raise  the  animal 
altogether  out  of  touch  with  the  group  to  which  he 
belongs,  so  that  his  fragment  of  a  group-soul  becomes 
capable  of  responding  to  the  outpouring  which  comes 
from  the  First  Aspect  of  the  Deity. 

For  this  final  outpouring  is  not  like  the  others,  a 
mighty  outrush  affecting  thousands  or  millions  sim- 
ultaneously; it  comes  to  each  one  individually  as 
that  one  is  ready  to  receive  it.  This  outpouring  has 
already  descended  as  far  as  the  intuitional  world; 
but  it  comes  no  farther  than  that  until  this  upward 
leap  is  made  by  the  soul  of  the  animal  from  below; 
but  when  that  happens  this  third  outpouring  leaps 
down  to  meet  it,  and  in  the  higher  mental  world  is 
formed  an  ego,  a  permanent  individuality — perma- 
nent, that  is,  until,  far  later  in  his  evolution,  the  man 
transcends  it  and  reaches  back  to  the  divine  unity 
from  which  he  came.  To  make  this  ego,  the  frag- 
ment of  the  group-soul  (which  has  hitherto  played 
the  part  always  of  ensouling  force)  becomes  in  its 
turn  a  vehicle,  and  is  itself  ensouled  by  that  divine 


40  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

Spark  which  has  fallen  into  it  from  on  high.  That 
Spark  may  be  said  to  have  been  hovering  in  the 
monadic  world  over  the  group-soul  through  the 
whole  of  its  previous  evolution,  unable  to  effect  a 
junction  with  it  until  its  corresponding  fragment 
in  the  group-soul  had  developed  sufficiently  to  per- 
mit it.  It  is  this  breaking  away  from  the  rest  of 
the  group-soul  and  developing  a  separate  ego  which 
marks  the  distinction  between  the  highest  animal 
and  the  lowest  man. 


CHAPTER  V. 

THE    CONSTITUTION   OF    MAN 

Man  is  therefore  in  essence  a  Spark  of  the  divine 
Fire,  belonging  to  the  monadic  world.*  To  that 
Spark,  dwelling  all  the  time  in  that  world,  we  give 
the  name  "Monad".  For  the  purposes  of  human 
evolution  Monad  manifests  itself  in  lower  worlds. 
"When  it  descends  one  stage  and  enters  the  spiritual 
world,  it  shows  itself  there  as  the  triple  Spirit,  hav- 
ing itself  three  aspects  (just  as  in  worlds  infi- 
nitely higher  the  Deity  has  His  three  Aspects.)  Of 
those  three  one  remains  always  in  that  world,  and 
we  call  that  the  Spirit  in  man.  The  second  aspect 
manifests  itself  in  the  intuitional  world,  and  we 
speak  of  it  as  the  Intuition  in  man.  The  third  shows 
itself  in  the  higher  mental  world,  and  we  call  it  the 
Intelligence  in  man.  These  three  aspects  taken  to- 
gether constitute  the  ego  which  ensouls  the  frag- 
ment from  the  group-soul.  Thus  man  as  we  know 

*  The  President  has  now  decided  upon  a  set  of  names  for  the 
planes,  so  for  the  future  these  will  be  used  instead  of  those 
previously  employed.  A  table  of  them  is  given  below  for  refer- 
ence: 

NEW  NAMES  OLD  NAMES 

1.  Divine  World  Adi  Plane 

2.  Monadic  "  Anupadaka 

3.  Spiritual ' '  Atmic  or  Nirvanic 

4.  Intuitional  World  Buddhic 

5.  Mental  World  Mental 

6.  Emotional  or  Astral  World    Astral 

7.  Physical  World  Physical 

These  will  supersede  the  names  given  in  Vol.  II  of  The  Inner 
Life. 


42  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

him,  though  in  reality  a  Monad  residing  in  the  mo- 
nadic world,  shows  himself  as  an  ego  in  the  higher 
mental  world,  manifesting  these  three  aspects  of 
himself  (Spirit,  Intuition  and  Intelligence)  through 
that  vehicle  of  higher  mental  matter  which  we  name 
the  causal  body. 

This  ego  is  the  man  during  the  human  stage  of 
evolution;  he  is  the  nearest  correspondence,  in  fact, 
to  the  ordinary  unscientific  conception  of  the  soul. 
He  lives  unchanged  (except  for  his  growth)  from 
the  moment  of  individualization  until  humanity  is 
transcended  and  merged  into  divinity.  He  is  in  no 
way  affected  by  what  we  call  birth  and  death;  what 
we  commonly  consider  as  his  life  is  only  a  day  in 
his  life.  The  body  which  we  can  see,  the  body  which 
is  born  and  dies,  is  a  garment  which  he  puts  on  for 
the  purposes  of  a  certain  part  of  his  evolution. 

Nor  is  it  the  only  body  which  he  assumes.  Before 
he,  the  ego  in  the  higher  mental  world,  can  take  a 
vehicle  belonging  to  the  physical  world,  he .  must 
make  a  connection  with  it  through  the  lower  mental 
and  astral  worlds.  When  he  wishes  to  descend  he 
draws  around  himself  a  veil  of  the  matter  of  the 
lower  mental  world,  which  we  call  his  mental  body. 
This  is  the  instiument  by  means  of  which  he  thinks 
all  his  concrete  thoughts — abstract  thought  being  a 
power  of  the  ego  himself  in  the  higher  mental  world. 

Next  he  draws  round  himself  a  veil  of  astral  mat- 
ter, which  we  call  his  astral  body ;  and  that  is  the 
instrument  of  his  passions  and  emotions,  and  also 
(in  conjunction  with  the  lower  part  of  his  mental 
body)  the  instrument  of  all  such  thought  as  is 


THE  CONSTITUTION   OF   MAN  43 

tinged  by  selfishness  and  personal  feeling.  Only 
after  having  assumed  these  intermediate  vehicles 
can  he  come  into  touch  with  a  baby  physical  body, 
and  be  born  into  the  world  which  we  know.  He 
lives  through  what  we  call  his  life,  gaining  certain 
qualities  as  the  result  of  its  experiences;  and  at  its 
end,  when  the  physical  body  is  worn  out,  he  reverses 
the  processes  of  descent  and  lays  aside  one  by  one 
the  temporary  vehicles  which  he  has  assumed.  The 
first  to  go  is  the  physical  body,  and  when  that  is 
dropped,  his  life  is  centered  in  the  astral  world  and 
he  lives  in  his  astral  body. 

The  length  of  his  stay  in  that  world  depends  upon 
the  amount  of  passion  and  emotion  which  he  has 
developed  within  himself  in  his  physical  life.  If 
there  is  much  of  these  the  astral  body  is  strongly 
vitalized,  and  will  persist  for  a  long  time;  if  there 
is  but  little,  the  astral  body  has  less  vitality,  and  he 
will  soon  be  able  to  cast  that  vehicle  aside  in  turn. 
When  that  is  done  he  finds  himself  living  in  his 
mental  body.  The  strength  of  that  depends  upon  the 
nature  of  the  thoughts  to  which  he  has  habituated 
himself,  and  usually  his  stay  at  this  level  is  a  long 
one.  At  last  it  comes  to  an  end,  and  he  casts  aside 
the  mental  body  in  turn,  and  is  once  more  the  ego 
in  his  own  world. 

Owing  to  lack  of  development,  he  is  as  yet  but 
partially  conscious  in  that  world;  the  vibrations  of 
its  matter  are  too  rapid  to  make  any  impression  upon 
him,  just  as  the  ultra-violet  rays  are  too  rapid  to 
make  any  impression  upon  our  eyes.  After  a  rest 
there,  he  feels  the  desire  to  descend  to  a  level  where 


44  A  TEXTBOOK  OP  THEOSOPHY 

the  undulations  are  perceptible  to  him,  in  order  that 
he  may  feel  himself  to  be  fully  alive;  so  he  repeats 
the  process  of  descent  into  denser  matter,  and  as- 
sumes once  more  a  mental,  an  astral  and  a  physical 
body.  As  his  previous  bodies  have  all  disintegrated, 
each  in  its  turn,  these  new  vehicles  are  entirely  dis- 
tinct from  them,  and  thus  it  happens  that  in  his 
physical  life  he  has  no  recollection  whatever  of  other 
similar  lives  which  have  preceded  it. 

When  functioning  in  this  physical  world  he  re- 
members by  means  of  his  mental  body;  but  since 
that  is  a  new  one,  assumed  only  for  this  birth,  it 
naturally  cannot  contain  the  memory  of  previous 
births  in  which  it  had  no  part.  The  man  himself, 
the  'ego,  does  remember  them  all  when  in  his  own 
world,  and  occasionally  some  partial  recollection  of 
them  or  influence  from  them  filters  through  into  his 
lower  vehicles.  He  does  not  usually,  in  his  physical 
life,  remember  the  experiences  of  earlier  lives,  but 
he  does  manifest  in  physical  life  the  qualities  which 
those  experiences  have  developed  in  him.  Each  .man 
is  therefore  exactly  what  he  has  made  himself  dur- 
ing those  past  lives;  if  he  has  in  them  developed 
good  qualities  in  himself,  he  possesses  the  good  quali- 
ties now;  if  he  neglected  to  train  himself,  and  con- 
sequently left  himself  weak  and  of  evil  disposition, 
he  finds  himself  precisely  in  that  condition  now. 
The  qualities,  good  or  evil,  with  which  he  is  born 
are  those  which  he  has  made  for  himself. 

This  development  of  the  ego  is  the  object  of  the 
whole  process  of  materiation;  he  assumes  those  veils 
of  matter  precisely  because  through  them  he  is  able 


THE   CONSTITUTION  OF  MAN  45 

to  receive  vibrations  to  which  he  can  respond,  so 
that  his  latent  faculties  may  thereby  be  unfolded. 
Though  man  descends  from  on  high  into  these  lower 
worlds,  it  is  only  through  that  descent  that  a  full 
cognizance  of  the  higher  worlds  is  developed  in  him. 
Full  consciousness  in  any  given  world  involves  the 
power  to  p'erceive  and  respond  to  all  the  undulations 
of  that  world;  therefore  the  ordinary  man  has  not 
yet  perfect  consciousness  at  any  level — not  even  in 
this  physical  world  which  he  thinks  he  knows.  It  is 
possible  for  him  to  unfold  his  percipience  in  all 
these  worlds,  and  it  is  by  means  of  such  developed 
consciousness  that  we  observe  all  these  facts  which 
I  am  now  describing. 

The  causal  body  is  the  permanent  vehicle  of  the 
ego  in  the  higher  mental  world.  It  consists  of  matter 
of  the  first,  second  and  third  subdivisions  of  that 
world.  In  ordinary  people  it  is  not  yet  fully  active, 
only  that  matter  which  belongs  to  the  third  subdi- 
vision being  vivified.  As  the  ego  unfolds  his  latent 
possibilities  through  the  long  course  of  his  evolution, 
the  higher  matter  is  gradually  brought  into  action, 
but  it  is  only  in  the  perfected  man  whom  we  call  the 
Adept  that  it  is  developed  to  its  fullest  extent.  Such 
matter  can  be  discerned  by  clairvoyant  sight,  but 
only  by  a  seer  who  knows  how  to  use  the  sight  of  the 
ego. 

It  is  difficult  to  describe  a  causal  body  fully,  be- 
cause the  senses  belonging  to  its  world  are  alto- 
gether different  from  and  higher  than  ours  at  this 
level.  Such  memory  of  the  appearance  of  a  causal 
body  as  it  is  possible  for  a  clairvoyant  to  bring  into 


46  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

his  physical  brain  represents  it  as  ovoid,  and  as  sur- 
rounding the  physical  body  of  the  man,  extending 
to  a  distance  of  about  eighteen  inches  from  the  nor- 
mal surface  of  that  body.  In  the  case  of  primitive 
man  it  resembles  a  bubble,  and  gives  the  impression 
of  being  empty.  It  is  in  reality  filled  with  higher 
mental  matter,  but  as  this  is  not  yet  brought  into 
activity  it  remains  colorless  and  transparent.  As 
advancement  continues  it  is  gradually  stirred  into 
alertness  by  vibrations  which  reach  it  from  the  lower 
bodies.  This  comes  but  slowly,  because  the  activities 
of  man  in  the  earlier  stages  of  his  evolution  are  not 
of  a  character  to  obtain  expression  in  matter-  so  fine 
as  that  of  the  higher  mental  body;  but  when  a  man 
reaches  the  stage  where  he  is  capable  either  of  abstract 
thought  or  of  unselfish  emotion  the  matter  of  the 
the  causal  body  is  aroused  into  response. 

When  these  rates  of  undulation  are  awakened 
within  him  they  show  themselves  in  his  causal  body 
as  colors,  so  that  instead  of  being  a  mere  transparent 
bubble  it  gradually  becomes  a  sphere  filled  with  mat- 
ter of  the  most  lovely  and  delicate  hues — an  object 
beautiful  beyond  all  conception.  It  is  found  by  ex- 
perience that  these  colors  are  significant.  The  vi- 
bration which  denotes  the  power  of  unselfish  affec- 
tion shows  itself  as  a  pale  rose-color;  that  which  in- 
dicates high  intellectual  power  is  yellow;  that  which 
expresses  sympathy  is  green,  while  blue  betokens 
devotional  feeling,  and  a  luminous  lilac-blue  typifies 
the  higher  spirituality.  The  same  scheme  of  color- 
significance  applies  to  the  bodies  which  are  built  of 
denser  matter,  but  as  we  approach  the  physical 


THE   CONSTITUTION  OF   MAN  47 

world  the  hues  are  in  fcvery  case  by  comparison 
grosser — not  only  less  delicate  but  also  less  living. 

In  the  course  of  evolution  in  the  lower  worlds 
man  often  introduces  into  his  vehicles  qualities  which 
are  undesirable  and  entirely  inappropriate  for  his 
life  as  an  ego — such,  for  example,  as  pride,  irrita- 
bility, sensuality.  These,  like  the  rest,  are  reducible 
to  vibrations,  but  they  are  in  all  cases  vibrations  of 
the  lower  subdivisions  of  their  respective  worlds,  and 
therefore  they  cannot  reproduce  themselves  in  the 
causal  body,  which  is  built  exclusively  of  the  matter 
of  the  three  higher  subdivisions  of  its  world.  For 
each  section  of  the  astral  body  acts  strongly  upon 
the  corresponding  section  of  the  mental  body,  but 
only  upon  the  corresponding  section;  it  cannot  in- 
fluence any  other  part.  So  the  causal  body  can  be 
affected  only  by  the  three  higher  portions  of  the 
astral  body ;  and  the  oscillations  of  those  represent 
only  good  qualities. 

The  practical  'effect  of  this  is  that  the  man  can 
build  into  the  ego  (that  is,  into  his  true  self)  nothing 
but  good  qualities;  the  evil  qualities  which  he  de- 
velops are  in  their  nature  transitory  and  must  be 
thrown  aside  as  he  advances,  because  he  has  no 
longer  within  him  matter  which  can  express  them. 
The  difference  between  the  causal  bodies  of  the 
savage  and  the  saint  is  that  the  first  is  empty  and 
colorless,  while  the  second  is  full  of  brilliant  corus- 
cating tints.  As  the  man  passes  beyond  even  saint- 
hood and  becomes  a  great  spiritual  power,  his  causal 
body  increases  in  size,  because  it  has  so  much  more 
to  express,  and  it  also  begins  to  pour  out  from  itself 


48  .         A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

in  all  directions  powerful  rays  of  living  light.  In 
one  who  has  attained  Adeptship  this  body  is  of 
enormous  dimensions. 

The  mental  body  is  built  of  matter  of  the  four 
lower  subdivisions  of  the  mental  world,  and  ex- 
presses the  concrete  thoughts  of  the  man.  Here  also 
we  find  the  same  color-scheme  as  in  the  causal  body. 
The  hu'es  are  somewhat  less  delicate,  and  we  notice 
one  or  two  additions.  For  example,  a  thought  of 
pride  shows  itself  as  orange,  while  irritability  is 
manifested  by  a  brilliant  scarlet.  We  may  see  here 
sometimes  the  bright  brown  of  avarice,  the  grey- 
brown  of  selfishness,  and  the  grey-green  of  deceit. 
Here  also  we  perceive  the  possibility  of  a  mixture  of 
colors;  the  affection,  the  intellect,  the  devotion  may 
be  tinged  by  selfishness,  and  in  that  case  their  dis- 
tinctive colors  are  mingled  with  the  brown  of  selfish- 
ness, and  so  we  have  an  impure  and  muddy  appear- 
ance. Although  its  particles  are  always  in  intensely 
rapid  motion  among  themselves,  this  body  has  at  the 
same  time  a  kind  of  loose  organization. 

The  size  and  shape  of  the  mental  body  are  deter- 
mined by  those  of  the  causal  vehicle.  There  are  in  it 
certain  striations  which  divide  it  more  or  less  irre- 
gularly into  segments,  each  of  these  corresponding 
to  a  certain  department  of  the  physical  brain,  so  that 
every  type  of  thought  should  function  through  its 
duly  assigned  portion.  The  mental  body  is  as  yet 
so  imperfectly  developed  in  ordinary  men  that  there 
are  many  in  whom  a  great  number  of  special  de- 
parments  are  not  yet  in  activity,  and  any  attempt 
at  thought  belonging  to  those  departments  has  to 


THE  CONSTITUTION  OF  MAN  49 

travel  round  through  some  inappropriate  channel 
which  happens  to  be  fully  open.  The  result  is  that 
thought  on  those  subjects  is  for  those  people  clumsy 
and  uncomprehending.  This  is  why  some  p'eople 
have  a  head  for  mathematics  and  others  are  unable 
to  add  correctly — why  some  people  instinctively  un- 
derstand, appreciate  and  enjoy  music,  while  otters 
do  not  know  one  tune  from  another. 

All  the  matter  of  the  mental  body  should  be  cir- 
culating freely,  but  sometimes  a  man  allows  his 
thought  upon  a  certain  subject  to  set  and  solidify, 
and  then  the  circulation  is  impeded,  and  there  is  a 
congestion  which  presently  hardens  into  a  kind  of 
wart  on  the  mental  body.  Such  a  wart  appears  to 
us  down  here  as  a  prejudice ;  and  until  it  is  absorbed 
and  free  circulation  restored,  it  is  impossible  for  the 
man  to  think  truly  or  to  see  clearly  with  regard  to 
that  particular  department  of  his  mind,  as  the  con- 
gestion checks  the  free  passage  of  undulations  both 
outward  and  inward. 

When  a  man  uses  any  part  of  his  mental  body  it 
not  only  vibrates  for  the  time  more  rapidly,  but  it 
also  temporarily  swells  out  and  increases  in  size.  If 
there  is  prolonged  thought  upon  a  subject  this  in- 
crease becomes  permanent,  and  it  is  thus  open  to  any 
man  to  increase  the  size  of  his  mental  body  either 
along  desirable  or  undesirable  lines. 

Good  thoughts  produce  vibrations  of  the  finer  mat- 
ter of  the  body,  which  by  its  specific  gravity  tends 
to  float  in  the  upper  part  of  the  ovoid;  whereas  bad 
thoughts,  such  as  selfishness  and  avarice,  are  always 
oscillations  of  the  grosser  matter,  which  tends  to 


50  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

gravitate  towards  the  lower  part  of  th'e  ovoid.  Con- 
sequently the  ordinary  man,  who  yields  himself  not 
infrequently  to  selfish  thoughts  of  various  kinds, 
usually  expands  the  lower  part  of  his  mental  body, 
and  presents  roughly  the  appearance  of  an  egg  with 
its  larger  end  downwards.  The  man  who  has  re- 
pressed those  lower  thoughts,  and  devoted  himself 
to  higher  ones,  tends  to  expand  the  upper  part  of  his 
mental  body  and  therefore  presents  the  appearance 
of  an  egg  standing  on  its  smaller  end.  From  a 
study  of  the  colors  and  striations  of  a  man's  mental 
body  the  clairvoyant  can  perceive  his  character  and 
the  progress  he  has  made  in  his  present  life.  From 
similar  features  of  the  causal  body  he  can  see  what 
progress  the  ego  has  made  since  its  original  forma- 
tion, when  the  man  left  the  animal  kingdom. 

When  a  man  thinks  of  any  concrete  object — a 
book,  a  house,  a  landscape — he  builds  a  tiny  image 
of  the  object  in  the  matter  of  his  mental  body.  This 
image  floats  in  the  upper  part  of  thalH^ody,  usually 
in  front  of  the  face  of  the  man  and  at  about  the 
level  of  the  eyes.  It  remains  there  as  long  as  the 
man  is  contemplating  the  object,  and  usually  for  a 
little  time  afterwards,  the  length  of  time  depending 
upon  the  intensity  and  the  clearness  of  the  thought. 
This  form  is  quite  objective,  and  can  be  seen  by  an- 
other person,  if  that  other  has  developed  the  sight 
of  his  own  mental  body.  If  a  man  thinks  of  another, 
he  creates  a  tiny  portrait  in  just  the  same  way.  If 
his  thought  is  merely  contemplative  and  involves  no 
feeling  (such  as  affection  or  dislike)  or  desires  (such 


THE  CONSTITUTION  OF  MAN  51 

as  a  wish  to  see  the  person)  the  thought  does  not 
usually  perceptibly  affect  the  man  of  whom  he  thinks. 

If  coupled  with  the  thought  of  the  person  there 
is  a  feeling,  as  for  example  of  affection,  another 
phenomenon  occurs  besides  the  forming  of  the  image. 
The  thought  of  affection  takes  a  definite  form,  which 
it  builds  out  of  the  matter  of  the  thinker's  mental 
body.  Because  of  the  emotion  involved,  it  draws 
round  it  also  matter  of  his  astral  body,  and  thus  we 
have  an  astro-mental  form  which  leaps  out  of  the 
body  in  which  it  has  been  generated,  and  moves 
through  space  towards  the  object  of  the  feeling  of 
affection.  If  the  thought  is  sufficiently  strong,  dis- 
tance makes  absolutely  no  difference  to  it;  but  the 
thought  of  an  ordinary  person  is  usually  weak  and 
diffused,  and  is  therefore  not  effective  outside  a 
limited  area. 

When  this  thought-form  reaches  its  object  it  dis- 
charges itself  into  his  astral  and  mental  bodies,  com- 
municating tfi*them  its  own  rate  of  vibration.  Put- 
ting this  in  another  way,  a  thought  of  love  sent  from 
one  person  to  another  involves  the  actual  transfer- 
ence of  a  certain  amount  both  of  force  and  of  matter 
from  the  sender  to  the  recipient,  and  its  effect  upon 
the  recipient  is  to  arouse  the  feeling  of  affection  in 
him,  and  slightly  but  permanently  to  increase  his 
power  of  loying.  But  such  a  thought  also  strength- 
ens the  power  of  affection  in  the  thinker,  and  there- 
fore it  does  good  simultaneously  to  both. 

Every  thought  builds  a  form;  if  the  thought  be 
directed  to  another  person  it  travels  to  him;  if  it  be 


52  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

distinctly  selfish  it  remains  in  the  immediate  neigh- 
borhood of  the  thinker;  if  it  belongs  to  neither  of 
these  catagories  it  floats  for  awhile  in  space  and  then 
slowly  disintegrates.  Every  man  therefore  is  leav- 
ing behind  him  wherever  he  goes  a  trail  of  thought- 
forms;  as  we  go  along  the  street  we  are  walking  all 
the  time  amidst  a  sea  of  other  men's  thoughts.  If 
a  man  leaves  his  mind  blank  for  a  time,  these  res- 
idual thoughts  of  others  drift  through  it,  making  in 
most  cases  but  little  impression  upon  him.  Some- 
times one  arrives  which  attracts  his  attention,  so 
that  his  mind  seizes  upon  it  and  makes  it  its  own, 
strengthens  it  by  the  addition  of  its  force,  and  then 
casts  it  out  again  to  affect  somebody  else.  A  man, 
therefore,  is  not  responsible  for  a  thought  which 
floatu  into  his  mind,  because  it  may  be  not  his,  but 
someone  else's;  but  he  is  responsible  if  he  takes  it 
up,  dwells  upon  it  and  then  sends  it  out  strengthened. 

Self -centered  thought  of  any  kind  hangs  about  the 
thinker,  and  most  men  surround  their  mental  bodies 
with  a  shell  of  such  thoughts.  Such  a  shell  obscures 
the  mental  vision  and  facilitates  the  formation  of 
prejudice. 

Each  thought-form  is  a  temporary  entity.  It  re- 
sembles a  charged  battery,  awaiting  an  opportunity 
to  discharge  itself.  Its  tendency  is  always  to  re- 
produce its  own  rate  of  vibration  in  the  mental  body 
upon  which  it  fastens  itself,  and  so  to  arouse  in  it  a 
like  thought.  If  the  person  at  whom  it  is  aimed 
happens  to  be  busy,  or  already  engaged  in  some 
definite  train  of  thought,  the  particles  of  his  mental 
body  are  already  swinging  at  a  certain  determinate 


THE  CONSTITUTION  OF  MAN  53 

rate,  and  cannot  for  th'e  moment  be  affected  from 
without.  In  that  case  the  thought-form  bides  its 
time,  hanging  about  its  object  until  he  is  sufficiently 
at  rest  to  permit  its  entrance;  then  it  discharges  it- 
self upon  him,  and  in  the  act  ceases  to  exist. 

The  self-centered  thought  behaves  in  exactly  the 
same  way  with  regard  to  its  generator,  and  dis- 
charges itself  upon  him  when  opportunity  offers. 
If  it  be  an  evil  thought,  he  generally  regards  it  as 
the  suggestion  of  a  tempting  demon,  whereas  in 
truth  he  tempts  himself.  Usually  each  definite 
thought  creates  a  new  thought-form;  but  if  a 
thought-form  of  the  same  nature  is  already  hovering 
round  the  thinker,  under  certain  circumstances  a 
new  thought  on  the  same  subject,  instead  of  creating 
a  new  form,  coalesces  with  and  strengthens  the  old 
one,  so  that  by  long  brooding  over  the  same  subject 
a  man  may  sometimes  create  a  thought-form  of  tre- 
mendous power.  If  the  thought  be  a  wicked  one, 
such  a  thought-form  may  become  a  veritable  evil  in- 
fluence, lasting  perhaps  for  many  years,  and  having 
for  a  time  all  the  appearance  and  powers  of  a  real 
living  entity. 

All  these  which  have  been  described  are  the  or- 
dinary unpremeditated  thoughts  of  man.  A  man  can 
make  a  thought-form  intentionally,  and  aim  it  at 
another  with  the  object  of  helping  him.  This  is  one 
of  the  lines  of  activity  adopted  by  those  who  desire 
to  serve  humanity.  A  steady  stream  of  powerful 
thought  directed  intelligently  upon  another  person 
may  be  of  the  greatest  assistance  to  him.  A  strong 
thought-form  may  be  a  real  guardian  angel,  and 


54  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

protect  its  object  from  impurity,  from  irritability 
or  from  fear. 

An  interesting  branch  of  the  subject  is  the  study 
of  the  various  shapes  and  colors  taken  by  thought- 
forms  of  different  kinds.  The  colors  indicate  the  na- 
ture of  the  thought,  and  are  in  agreement  with  those 
which  we  have  already  described  as  existing  in  the 
bodies.  The  shapes  are  of  infinite  variety,  but  are 
often  in  some  way  typical  of  the  kind  of  thought 
which  they  express. 

Every  thought  of  definite  character,  such  as  a 
thought  of  affection  or  hatred,  of  devotion  or  sus- 
picion, of  anger  or  fear,  of  pride  or  jealously,  not 
only  creates  a  form  but  also  radiates  an  undulation. 
The  fact  that  each  one  of  these  thoughts  is  expressed 
by  a  certain  color  indicates  that  the  thought  ex- 
presses itself  as  an  oscillation  of  the  matter  of  a 
certain  part  of  the  mental  body.  This  rate  of  oscil- 
lation communicates  itself  to  the  surrounding  mental 
matter  precisely  in  the  same  way  as  the  vibration 
of  a  bell  communicates  itself  to  the  surrounding  air. 

This  radiation  travels  out  in  all  directions,  and 
whenever  it  impinges  upon  another  mental  body  in  a 
passive  or  receptive  condition  it  communicates  to  it 
something  of  its  own  vibration.  This  does  not  con- 
vey a  definite  complete  idea,  as  does  the  thought- 
form,  but  it  tends  to  produce  a  thought  of  the  same 
character  as  itself.  For  example,  if  the  thought 
be  devotional  its  undulations  will  excite  devotion, 
but  the  object  of  the  worship  may  be  different  in  the 
case  of  each  person  upon  whose  mental  body  they 
impinge.  The  thought-form,  on  the  other  hand,  can 


THE   CONSTITUTION  OF  MAN  55 

reach  only  one  person,  but  will  convey  to  that  per- 
son (if  receptive)  not  only  a  general  devotional  feel- 
ing, but  also  a  precise  image  of  the  Being  for  whom 
the  adoration  was  originally  felt. 

Any  person  who  habitually  thinks  pure,  good  and 
strong  thoughts  is  utilizing  for  that  purpose  the 
higher  part  of  his  mental  body — a  part  which  is  not 
used  at  all  by  the  ordinary  man,  and  is  entirely  un- 
developed in  him.  Such  an  one  is  therefore  a  power 
for  good  in  the  world,  and  is  being  of  great  use  to 
all  those  of  his  neighbors  who  are  capable  of  any 
sort  of  response.  For  the  vibration  which  he  sends 
out  tends  to  arouse  a  new  and  higher  part  of  their 
mental  bodies,  and  consequently  to  open  before  them 
altogether  new  fields  of  thought. 

It  may  not  be  exactly  the  same  thought  as  that 
sent  out,  but  it  is  of  the  same  nature.  The  undula- 
tions generated  by  a  man  thinking  of  Theosophy  do 
not  necessarily  communicate  Theosophical  ideas  to 
all  those  around  him;  but  they  do  awaken  in  them 
more  liberal  and  higher  thought  than  that  to  which 
they  have  before  been  accustomed.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  thought-forms  generated  under  such  cir- 
cumstances, though  more  limited  in  their  action  than 
the  radiation,  are  also  more  precise;  they  can  affect 
only  those  who  are  to  some  extent  open  to  them,  but 
to  them  they  will  convey  definite  Theosophical  ideas. 

The  colors  of  the  astral  body  bear  the  same  mean- 
ing as  those  of  the  higher  vehicles,  but  are  several 
octaves  of  color  below  them,  and  much  more  nearly 
approaching  to  such  hues  as  we  see  in  the  physical 
world.  It  is  the  vehicle  of  passion  and  emotion,  and 


56  A  TEXTBOOK  OP  THEOSOPHY 

consequently  it  may  exhibit  additional  colors,  ex- 
pressing man's  less  desirable  feelings,  which  can- 
not show  themselves  at  higher  Levels;  for  example, 
a  lurid  brownish  red  indicates  the  presence  of  sensu- 
ality, while  black  clouds  show  malice  and  hatred. 
A  curious  livid  grey  betokens  the  presence  of  fear, 
and  a  much  darker  grey,  usually  arranged  in  heavy 
rings  around  the  ovoid,  indicates  a  condition  of  de- 
pression. Irritability  is  shown  by  the  presence  of  a 
number  of  small  scarlet  flecks  in  the  astral  body, 
each  representing  a  small  angry  impulse.  Jealously 
is  shown  by  a  peculiar  brownish-green,  generally 
studded  with  the  same  scarlet  flecks.  The  astral 
body  is  in  size  and  shape  like  those  just  described, 
and  in  the  ordinary  man  its  outline  is  usually  clearly 
marked;  but  in  the  case  of  primitive  man  it  is  often 
exceedingly  irregular,  and  resembles  a  rolling  cloud 
composed  of  all  the  more  unpleasant  colors. 

When  the  astral  body  is  comparatively  quiet  (it 
is  never  actually  at  rest)  the  colors  which  are  to  be 
seen  in  it  indicate  those  emotions  to  which  the.  man 
is  most  in  the  habit  of  yielding  himself.  When  the 
man  experiences  a  rush  of  any  particular  feeling, 
the  rate  of  vibration  which  expresses  that  feeling 
dominates  for  a  time  the  entire  astral  body.  If,  for 
example,  it  be  devotion,  the  whole  of  his  astral  body 
is  flushed  with  blue,  and  while  the  emotion  remains 
at  its  strongest  the  normal  colors  do  little  more  than 
modify  the  blue,  or  appear  faintly  through  a  veil 
of  it;  but  presently  the  vehemence  of  the  sentiment 
dies  away,  and  the  normal  colors  re-assert  them- 
selves. But  because  of  that  spasm  of  emotion  the 


THE  CONSTITUTION  OF  MAN  57 

part  of  the  astral  body  which  is  normally  blue  has 
been  increased  in  size.  Thus  a  man  who  frequently 
feels  high  devotion  soon  comes  to  have  a  large  area 
of  blue  permanently  existing  in  his  astral  body. 

When  the  rush  of  devotional  feeling  comes  over 
him  it  is  usually  accompanied  by  thoughts  of  de- 
votion. Although  primarily  formed  in  the  mental 
body,  these  draw  round  themselves  a  large  amount 
of  astral  matter  as  well,  so  that  their  action  is  in 
both  worlds,  In  both  worlds  also  is  the  radiation 
which  was  previously  described,  so  that  the  devo- 
tional man  is  a  center  of  devotion,  and  will  influence 
other  people  to  share  both  his  thoughts  and  his  feel- 
ings. The  same  is  true  in  the  case  of  affection,  anger, 
depression — and,  indeed,  of  all  other  feelings. 

The  flood  of  emotion  does  not  itself  greatly  affect 
the  mental  body,  although  for  a  time  it  may  render 
it  almost  impossible  for  any  activity  from  that  men- 
tal body  to  come  through  into  the  physical  brain. 
That  is  not  because  that  body  itself  is  affected,  but 
because  the  astral  body,  which  acts  as  a  bridge  be- 
tween it  and  the  physical  brain,  is  vibrating  so  en- 
tirely at  one  rate  as  to  be  incapable  of  conveying 
any  undulation  which  is  not  in  harmony  with  that. 

The  permanent  colors  of  the  astral  body  react  upon 
the  mental.  They  produce  in  it  their  correspond- 
ences, several  octaves  higher,  in  the  same  manner 
as  a  musical  note  produces  overtones.  The  mental 
body  in  its  turn  reacts  upon  the  causal  in  the  same 
way,  and  thus  all  the  good  qualities  expressed  in  the 
lower  vehicles  by  degrees  establish  themselves  per- 
manently in  the  ego.  The  evil  qualities  cannot  do  so, 


58  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

as  the  rates  of  vibration  which  express  them  are  im 
possible  for  the  higher  mental  matter  of  which  the 
causal  body  is  constructed. 

So  far,  we  have  described  vehicles  which  are  the 
expression  of  the  ego  in  their  respective  worlds — 
vehicles  which  he  provides  for  himself;  in  the  physi- 
cal world  we  come  to  a  vehicle  which  is  provided 
for  him  by  nature  under  laws  which  will  be  later 
explained — which,  though  also  in  some  sense  an  ex- 
pression of  him,  is  by  no  means  a  perfect  manifesta- 
tion. In  ordinary  life  we  see  only  a  small  part  of 
this  physical  body — only  that  which  is  built  of  the 
solid  and  liquid  subdivisions  of  physical  matter. 
The  body  contains  matter  of  all  the  seven  subdi- 
visions, and  all  of  them  play  their  part  in  its  life 
and  are  of  equal  importance  to  it. 

We  usually  speak  of  the  invisible  part  of  the  phy- 
sical body  as  the  etheric  double;  "double"  because 
it  exactly  reproduces  the  size  and  shape  of  the  part 
of  the  body  that  we  can  see,  and  "etheric"  because 
it  is  built  of  that  finer  kind  of  matter  by  the  'vibra- 
tions of  which  light  is  conveyed  to  the-retina  of  the 
eye.  (This  must  not  be  confused  with  the  true  aether 
of  space* — that  of  which  matter  is  the  negation.) 
This  invisible  part  of  the  physical  body  is  of  great 
importance  to  us,  since  it  is  the  vehicle  through 
which  flow  the  streams  of  vitality  which  keep  the 
body  alive,  and  without  it,  as  a  bridge  to  convey  un- 
dulations of  thought  and  feeling  from  the  astral  to 
the  visible  denser  physical  matter,  the  ego  could 
make  no  use  of  the  cells  of  his  brain. 

The  life  of  a  physical  body  is  one  of  perpetual 


THE   CONSTITUTION  OF  MAN  59 

change  and  in  order  that  it  shall  live,  it  needs  con- 
stantly to  be  supplied  from  three  distinct  sources. 
It  must  have  food  for  its  digestion,  air  for  its  breath- 
ing, and  vitality  for  its  absorption.  This  vitality  is 
essentially  a  force,  but  when  clothed  in  matter  it  ap- 
pears to  us  as  a  definite  element,  which  exists  in  all 
the  worlds  of  which  we  have  spoken.  At  the  moment 
we  are  concerned  with  that  manifestation  of  it  which 
we  find  in  the  highest  subdivision  of  the  physical 
world.  Just  as  the  blood  circulates  through  the 
veins,  so  does  the  vitality  circulate  along  the  nerves; 
and  precisely  as  any  abnormality  in  the  flow  of  the 
blood  at  once  affects  the  physical  body,  so  does  the 
slightest  irregularity  in  the  absorption  or  flow  of  the 
vitality  affect  this  higher  part  of  the  physical  body. 
Vitality  is  a  force  which  comes  originally  from  the 
sun.  When  an  ultimate  physical  atom  is  charged 
with  it,  it  draws  round  itself  six  other  atoms  and 
makes  itself  into  an  etheric  element.  The  original 
force  of  vitality  is  then  subdivided  into  seven,  each 
of  the  atoms  carrying  a  separate  charge.  The  ele- 
ment thus  made  is  absorbed  into  the  human  body 
through  the  etheric  part  of  the  spleen.  It  is  there 
split  up  into  its  component  parts,  which  at  once  flow 
to  the  various  parts  of  the  body  assigned  to  them. 
The  spleen  is  one  of  the  seven  force-centers  in  the 
etheric  part  of  the  physical  body.  In  each  of  our 
vehicles  seven  such  centers  should  be  in  activity,  and 
when  they  are  thus  active  they  are  visible  to  clair- 
voyant sight.  They  appear  usually  as  shallow  vor- 
tices, for  they  are  the  points  at  which  the  force  from 
the  higher  bodies  enters  the  lower.  In  the  physical 


60  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHT 

body  these  centers  are:  (1)  at  the  base  of  the  spine, 
(2)  at  the  solar  plexus,  (3)  at  the  spleen,  (4)  over 
the  heart,  (5)  at  the  throat,  (6)  between  the  eye- 
brows, and  (7)  at  the  top  of  the  head.  There  are 
other  dormant  centers,  but  their  awakening  is  un- 
desirable. 

The  shape  of  all  the  higher  bodies  as  seen  by  the 
clairvoyant  is  ovoid,  but  the  matter  composing  them 
is  not  equally  distributed  throughout  the  egg.  In 
the  midst  of  this  ovoid  is  the  physical  body.  The 
physical  body  strongly  attracts  astral  matter,  and  in 
its  turn  the  astral  matter  strongly  attracts  mental 
matter.  Therefore  by  far  the  greater  part  of  the 
matter  of  the  astral  body  is  gathered  within  the  phy- 
sical frame;  and  the  same  is  true  of  the  mental  ve- 
hicle. If  we  see  the  astral  body  of  a  man  in  its  own 
world,  apart  from  the  physical  body,  we  shall  still 
perceive  the  astral  matter  aggregated  in  exactly  the 
shape  of  the  physical,  although,  as  the  matter  is  more 
fluidic  in  its  nature,  what  we  see  is  a  body  built  of 
dense  mist,  in  the  midst  of  an  ovoid  of  much  finer 
mist.  The  same  is  true  for  the  mental  body.  There- 
fore, if  in  the  astral  or  the  mental  world  we  should 
meet  an  acquaintance,  we  should  recognize  him  by 
his  appearance  just  as  instantly  as  in  the  physical 
world. 

This,  then,  is  the  true  constitution  of  man.  In  the 
first  place  he  is  a  Monad,  a  Spark  of  the  Divine.  Of 
that  Monad  the  ego  is  a  partial  expression,  formed 
in  order  that  he  may  enter  evolution,  and  may  return 
to  the  Monad  with  joy,  bringing  his  sheaves  with  him 
in  the  shape  of  qualities  developed  by  garnered  ex- 


THE   CONSTITUTION  OF  MAN  61 

perienee.  The  ego  in  his  turn  puts  down  part  of  him- 
self for  the  same  purpose  into  lower  worlds,  and  we 
call  that  part  a  personality,  because  the  Latin  word 
persona  means  a  mask,  and  this  personality  is  the 
mask  which  the  ego  puts  upon  himself  when  he  mani- 
fests in  worlds  lower  than  his  own.  Just  as  the  ego 
is  a  small  part  and  an  imperfect  expression  of  the 
Monad,  so  is  the  personality  a  small  part  and  an 
imperfect  expression  of  the  ego;  so  that  what  we 
usually  think  of  as  the  man  is  only  in  truth  a  frag- 
ment of  a  fragment. 

The  personality  wears  three  bodies  or  vehicles, 
the  mental,  the  astral  and  the  physical.  "While  the 
man  is  what  we  call  alive  and  awake  on  the  physical 
earth  he  is  limited  by  his  physical  body,  for  he  uses 
the  astral  and  mental  bodies  only  as  bridges  to  con- 
nect himself  with  his  lowest  vehicle.  One  of  the  lim- 
itations of  the  physical  body  is  that  it  quickly  be- 
comes fatigued  and  needs  periodical  rest.  Each  night 
the  man  leaves  it  to  sleep,  and  withdraws  into  his 
astral  vehicle,  which  does  not  become  fatigued,  and 
therefore  needs  no  sleep.  During  this  sleep  of  the 
physical  body  the  man  is  free  to  move  about  in  the 
astral  world;  but  the  extent  to  which  he  does  this 
depends  upon  his  development.  The  primitive  savage 
usually  does  not  move  more  than  a  few  miles  away 
from  his  sleeping  physical  form — often  not  as  much 
as  that;  and  he  has  only  the  vaguest  consciousness. 

The  educated  man  is  generally  able  to  travel  in  his 
astral  vehicle  wherever  he  will,  and  has  much  more 
consciousness  in  the  astral  world,  though  he  has  not 
often  the  faculty  of  bringing  into  his  waking  life  any 


62  A  TEXTBOOK  OP  THEOSOPHY 

memory  of  what  he  has  seen  and  done  while  his  phys- 
ical body  was  asleep.  Sometimes  he  does  remember 
some  incident  which  he  has  seen,  some  experience 
which  he  has  had,  and  then  he  calls  it  a  vivid  dream. 
More  often  his  recollections  are  hopelessly  entangled 
with  vague  memories  of  waking  life,  and  with  im- 
pressions made  from  without  upon  the  etheric  part  of 
his  brain.  Thus  we  arrive  at  the  confused  and  often 
absurd  areams  of  ordinary  life.  The  developed  man 
becomes  as  fully  conscious  and  active  in  the  astral 
world  as  in  the  physical,  and  brings  through  into 
the  latter  full  remembrance  of  what  he  has  been 
doing  in  the  former — that  is,  he  has  a  continuous 
life  without  any  loss  of  consciousness  throughout  the 
whole  twenty-four  hours,  and  thus  throughout  the 
whole  of  his  physical  life,  and  even  through  death 
itself. 


CHAPTER  VI 

AFTER  DEATH 

Death  is  the  laying  aside  of  the  physical  body ;  but 
it  makes  no  more  difference  to  the  ego  than  does  the 
laying  aside  of  an  overcoat  to  the  physical  man. 
Having  put  off  his  physical  body,  the  ego  continues 
to  live  in  his  astral  body  until  the  force  has  become 
exhausted  which  has  been  generated  by  such  emo- 
tions and  passions  as  he  has  allowed  himself  to  feel 
during  earth-life.  When  that  has  happened,  the 
second  death  takes  place;  the  astral  body  also  falls 
away  from  him,  and  he  finds  himself  living  in  the 
mental  body  and  in  the  lower  mental  world.  In  that 
condition  he  remains  until  the  thought-forces  gener- 
ated during  his  physical  and  astral  lives  have  worn 
themselves  out ;  then  he  drops  the  third  vehicle  in  its 
turn  and  remains  once  more  an  ego  in  his  own  world, 
inhabiting  his  causal  body. 

There  is,  then,  no  such  thing  as  death  as  it  is 
ordinarily  understood.  There  is  only  a  succession  of 
stages  in  a  continuous  life — stages  lived  in  the  three 
worlds  one  after  another.  The  apportionment  of  time 
between  these  three  worlds  varies  much  as  man  ad- 
vances. The  primitive  man  lives  almost  exclusively 
in  the  physical  world,  spending  only  a  few  years  in 
the  astral  at  the  end  of  each  of  his  physical  lives. 
As  he  develops,  the  astral  life  becomes  longer,  and  as 


64  A  TEXTBOOK  OP  THEOSOBHY 

intellect  unfolds  in  him,  and  lie  becomes  able  to 
think,  he  begins  to  spend  a  little  time  in  the  mental 
world  as  well.  The  ordinary  man  of  civilized  races 
remains  longer  in  the  mental  world  than  in  the  phys- 
ical and  astral;  indeed,  the  more  a  man  evolves  the 
longer  becomes  his  mental  life  and  the  shorter  his 
life  in  the  astral  world. 

The  astral  life  is  the  result  of  all  feelings  which 
have  in  them  the  element  of  self.  If  they  have  been 
directly  selfish,  they  bring  him  into  conditions  of 
great  unpleasantness  in  the  astral  world;  if,  though 
tinged  with  thoughts  of  self,  they  have  been  good  and 
kindly,  they  bring  him  a  comparatively  pleasant 
though  still  limited  astral  life.  Such  of  his  thoughts 
and  feelings  as  have  been  entirely  unselfish  produce 
their  result  in  his  life  in  the  mental  world;  there- 
fore that  life  in  the  mental  world  cannot  be  other 
than  blissful.  The  astral  life,  which  the  man  has 
made  for  himself  either  miserable  or  comparatively 
joyous,  corresponds  to  what  Christians  call  purga- 
tory; the  lower  mental  life,  which  is  always  entirely 
happy,  is  what  is  called  heaven. 

Man  makes  for  himself  his  own  purgatory  and 
heaven,  and  these  are  not  places,  but  states  of  con- 
sciousness. Hell  does  not  exist ;  it  is  only  a  figment  of 
the  theological  imagination;  but  a  man  who  lives 
foolishly  may  make  for  himself  a  very  unpleasant 
and  long-enduring  purgatory.  Neither  purgatory  nor 
heaven  can  ever  be  eternal,  for  a  finite  cause  cannot 
produce  an  infinite  result.  The  variations  in  individ- 
ual cases  are  so  wide  that  to  give  actual  figures  is 
somewhat  misleading.  If  we  take  the  average  man 


AFTEB  DEATH  65 

of  what  is  called  the  lower  middle  class,  the  typical 
specimen  of  which  would  be  a  small  shop-keeper  or 
shop-assistant,  his  average  life  in  the  astral  world 
would  be  perhaps  about  forty  years,  and  the  life  in 
the  mental  world  about  two  hundred.  The  man  of 
spirituality  and  culture,  on  the  other  hand,  may  have 
perhaps  twenty  years  of  life  in  the  astral  world  and 
a  thousand  in  the  heaven-life.  One  who  is  specially 
developed  may  reduce  the  astral  life  to  a  few  days 
or  hours  and  spend  fifteen  hundred  years  in  heaven. 

Not  only  does  the  length  of  these  periods  vary 
greatly,  but  the  conditions  in  both  worlds  also  differ 
widely.  The  matter  of  which  all  these  bodies  are 
built  is  not  dead  matter  but  living,  and  that  fact  is 
to  be  taken  into  consideration.  The  physical  body  is 
built  up  of  cells,  each  of  which  is  a  tiny  separate  life 
animated  by  the  Second  Outpouring,  which  comes 
forth  from  the  second  Aspect  of  the  Deity.  These 
cells  are  of  varying  kinds  and  fulfil  various  func- 
tions, and  all  these  facts  must  be  taken  into  account 
if  the  man  wishes  to  understand  the  work  of  his 
physical  body  and  to  live  a  healthy  life  in  it. 

The  same  thing  applies  to  the  astral  and  mental 
bodies.  In  the  cell-life  which  permeates  them  there 
is  as  yet  nothing  in  the  way  of  intelligence,  but  there 
is  a  strong  instinct  always  pressing  in  the  direction 
of  what  is  for  its  development.  The  life  animating 
the  matter  of  which  such  bodies  are  built  is  upon  the 
outward  arc  of  evolution,  moving  downwards  or  out- 
wards into  matter,  so  that  progress  for  it  means  to 
descend  into  denser  forms  of  matter,  and  to  learn  to 
express  itself  through  them.  Unfoldment  for  the 


66  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHT 

man  is  just  the  opposite  of  this;  he  has  already  sunk 
deeply  into  matter  and  is  now  rising  out  of  that 
towards  his  source.  There  is  consequently  a  constant 
conflict  of  interests  between  the  man  within  and  the 
life  inhabiting  the  matter  of  his  vehicles,  inasmuch 
as  its  tendency  is  downward,  while  his  is  upward. 

The  matter  of  the  astral  body  (or  rather  the  life 
animating  its  molecules)  desires  for  its  evolution  such 
undulations  as  it  can  get,  of  as  many  different  kinds 
as  possible,  and  as  coarse  as  possible.  The  next  step 
in  its  evolution  will  be  to  ensoul  physical  matter  and 
become  used  to  its  still  slower  oscillations;  and  as  a 
step  on  the  way  to  that,  it  desires  the  grossest  of  the 
astral  vibrations.  It  has  not  the  intelligence  definitely 
to  plan  for  these ;  but  its  instinct  helps  it  to  discover 
how  most  easily  to  procure  them. 

The  molecules  of  the  astral  body  are  constantly 
changing,  as  are  those  of  the  physical  body,  but 
nevertheless  the  life  in  the  mass  of  those  astral  mole- 
cules has  a  sense,  though  a  very  vague  sense,  of  itself 
as  a  whole — as  a  kind  of  temporary  entity.  It  does 
not  know  that  it  is  part  of  a  man's  astral  body;  it  is 
quite  incapable  of  understanding  what  a  man  is ;  but 
it  realizes  in  a  blind  way  that  under  its  present  con- 
ditions it  receives  many  more  waves,  and  much 
stronger  ones,  than  it  would  receive  if  floating  at 
large  in  the  atmosphere.  It  would  then  only  oc- 
casionally catch,  as  from  a  distance,  the  radiation  of 
man's  passions  and  emotions;  now  it  is  in  the  very 
heart  of  them,  it  can  miss  none,  and  it  gets  them  at 
their  strongest.  Therefore  it  feels  itself  in  a  good 
position,  and  it  makes  an  effort  to  retain  that  posi- 


AFTEE  DEATH  '  67 

tion.  It  finds  itself  in  contact  with  something  finer 
than  itself — the  matter  of  the  man's  mental  body; 
and  it  comes  to  feel  that  if  it  can  contrive  to  involve 
that  finer  something  in  its  own  undulations,  they 
will  be  greatly  intensified  and  prolonged. 

Since  astral  matter  is  the  vehicle  of  desire  and 
mental  matter  is  the  vehicle  of  thought,  this  instinct, 
when  translated  into  our  language,  means  that  if  the 
astral  body  can  induce  us  to  think  that  we  want 
what  it  wants,  it  is  much  more  likely  to  get  it.  Thus 
it  exercises  a  slow  steady  pressure  upon  the  man — a 
kind  of  hunger  on  its  side,  but  for  him  a  temptation 
to  what  is  coarse  and  undesirable.  If  he  be  a  pas- 
sionate man  there  is  a  gentle  but  ceaseless  pressure 
in  the  direction  of  irritability;  if  he  be  a  sensual 
man,  an  equally  steady  pressure  in  the  direction  of 
impurity. 

A  man  who  does  not  understand  this  usually  makes 
one  of  two  mistakes  with  regard  to  it :  either  he  sup- 
poses it  to  be  the  prompting  of  his  own  nature,  and 
therefore  regards  that  nature  as  inherently  evil;  or 
he  thinks  of  the  pressure  as  coming  from  outside — as 
a  temptation  of  an  imaginary  devil.  The  truth  lies 
between  the  two.  The  pressure  is  natural,  not  to  the 
man  but  to  the  vehicle  which  he  is  using;  its  desire 
is  natural  and  right  for  it,  but  harmful  to  the  man, 
and  therefore  it  is  necessary  that  he  should  resist  it. 
If  he  does  so  resist,  if  he  declines  to  yield  himself 
to  the  feelings  suggested  to  him,  the  particles  within 
him  which  need  those  vibrations  become  apathetic 
for  lack  of  nourishment,  and  eventually  atrophy  and 
fall  out  from  his  astral  body,  and  are  replaced  by 


68  A  TEXTBOOK  OP  THEOSOPHY 

other  particles,  whose  natural  wave-rate  is  more 
nearly  in  accordance  with  that  which  the  man  habit- 
ually permits  within  his  astral  body. 

This  gives  the  reason  for  what  are  called  prompt- 
ings of  the  lower  nature  during  life.  If  the  man 
yields  himself  to  them,  such  promptings  grow 
stronger  and  stronger  until  at  last  he  feels  as  though 
he  could  not  resist  them,  and  identifies  himself  with 
them — which  is  exactly  what  this  curious  half -life  in 
the  particles  of  the  astral  body  wants  him  to  do. 

At  the  death  of  the  physical  body  this  vague  astral 
consciousness  is  alarmed.  It  realizes  that  its  existence 
as  a  separated  mass  is  menaced,  and  it  takes  in- 
stinctive steps  to  defend  itself  and  to  maintain  its 
position  as  long  as  possible.  The  matter  of  the  astral 
body  is  far  more  fluidic  than  that  of  the  physical, 
and  this  consciousness  seizes  upon  its  particles  and 
disposes  them  so  as  to  resist  encroachment.  It  puts 
the  grossest  and  densest  upon  the  outside  as  a  kind  of 
shell,  and  arranges  the  others  in  concentric  layers, 
so  that  the  body  as  a  whole  may  become  as  resistant 
to  friction  as  its  constitution  permits,  and  may  there- 
fore retain  its  shape  as  long  as  possible. 

For  the  man  this  produces  various  unpleasant 
effects.  The  physiology  of  the  astral  body  is  quite 
different  from  that  of  the  physical;  the  latter  ac- 
quires its  information  from  without  by  means  of  cer- 
tain organs  which  are  specialized  as  the  instruments 
of  its  senses,  but  the  astral  body  has  no  separated 
senses  in  our  meaning  of  the  word.  What  for  the 
astral  body  corresponds  to  sight  is  the  power  of  its 
molecules  to  respond  to  impacts  from  without,  which 


AFTER  DEATH  69 

come  to  them  by  means  of  similar  molecules.  For 
example,  a  man  has  within  his  astral  body  matter 
belonging  to  all  the  subdivisions  of  the  astral  world, 
and  it  is  because  of  that  that  he  is  capable  of  "see- 
ing" objects  built  of  the  matter  of  any  of  these 
subdivisions. 

Supposing  an  astral  object  to  be  made  of  the  mat- 
ter of  the  second  and  third  subdivisions  mixed,  a 
man  living  in  the  astral  world  could  perceive  that 
object  only  if  on  the  surface  of  his  astral  body  there 
were  particles  belonging  to  the  second  and  third  sub- 
divisions of  that  world  which  were  capable  of  re- 
ceiving and  recording  the  vibrations  which  that 
object  set  up.  A  man  who  from  the  arrangement  of 
his  body  by  the  vague  consciousness  of  which  we 
have  spoken,  had  on  the  outside  of  that  vehicle  only 
the  denser  matter  of  the  lowest  subdivision,  could  no 
more  be  conscious  of  the  object  which  we  have  men- 
tioned than  we  are  ourselves  conscious  in  the  phys- 
ical body  of  the  gases  which  move  about  us  in  the 
atmosphere  or  of  objects  built  exclusively  of  etheric 
matter. 

During  physical  life  the  matter  of  the  man's  astral 
body  is  in  constant  motion,  and  its  particles  pass 
among  one  another  much  as  do  those  of  boiling  water. 
Consequently  at  any  given  moment  it  is  practically 
certain  that  particles  of  all  varieties  will  be  repre- 
sented on  the  surface  of  his  astral  body,  and  that 
therefore  when  he  is  using  his  astral  body  during 
sleep  he  will  be  able  to  "see"  by  its  means  any 
astral  object  which  approaches  him. 

After  death,  if  he  has  allowed  the  rearrangement 


70  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

to  be  made  (as,  from  ignorance,  all  ordinary  persons 
do)  his  condition  in  this  respect  will  be  different. 
Having  on  the  surface  of  his  astral  body  only  the 
lowest  and  grossest  particles,  he  can  receive  impres- 
sions only  from  corresponding  particles  outside ;  so 
that  instead  of  seeing  the  whole  of  the  astral  world 
about  him,  he  will  see  only  one-seventh  of  it,  and 
that  the  densest  and  most  impure.  The  vibrations 
of  this  heavier  matter  are  the  expressions  only  of 
objectionable  feelings  and  emotions,  and  of  the  least 
refined  class  of  astral  entities.  Therefore  it  emerges 
that  a  man  in  this  condition  can  see  only  the  unde- 
sirable inhabitants  of  the  astral  world,  and  can  feel 
only  its  most  unpleasant  and  vulgar  influences. 

He  is  surrounded  by  other  men,  whose  astral 
bodies  are  probably  of  quite  ordinary  character;  but 
since  he  can  see  and  feel  only  what  is  lowest  and 
coarsest  in  them,  they  appear  to  him  to  be  monsters 
of  vice  with  no  redeeming  features.  Even  his  friends 
seem  not  at  all  what  they  used  to  be,  because  he  is 
now  incapable  of  appreciating  any  of  their  better 
qualities.  Under  these  circumstances  it  is  little 
wonder  that  he  considers  the  astral  world  a  hell ;  yet 
the  fault  is  in  no  way  with  the  astral  world,  but 
with  himself — first,  for  allowing  within  himself  so 
much  of  that  ruder  type  of  matter,  and  secondly, 
for  letting  that  vague  astral  consciousness  dominate 
him  and  dispose  it  in  that  particular  way. 

The  man  who  has  studied  these  matters  declines 
absolutely  to  yield  to  the  pressure  during  life  or  to 
permit  the  rearrangement  after  death,  and  conse- 
quently he  retains  his  power  of  seeing  the  astral  world 


AFTER  DEATH  71 

as  a  whole,  and  not  merely  the  cruder  and  baser  part 
of  it. 

The  astral  world  has  many  points  in  common  with 
the  physical ;  just  like  the  physical,  it  presents  differ- 
ent appearances  to  different  people,  and  even  to  the 
same  person  at  different  periods  of  his  career.  It  is 
the  home  of  emotion  and  of  lower  thoughts;  and 
emotions  are  much  stronger  in  that  world  than  in 
this.  When  a  person  is  awake  we  cannot  see  that 
larger  part  of  his  emotion  at  all ;  its  strength  goes  in 
setting  in  motion  the  gross  physical  matter  of  the 
brain.  So  if  we  see  a  man  show  affection  here,  what 
we  can  see  is  not  the  whole  of  his  affection,  but  only 
such  part  of  it  as  is  left  after  all  this  other  work 
has  been  done.  Emotions  therefore  bulk  far  more 
largely  in  the  astral  life  than  in  the  physical.  They 
in  no  way  exclude  higher  thought  if  they  are  con- 
trolled, so  in  the  astral  world  as  in  the  physical  a 
man  may  devote  himself  to  study  and  to  helping  his 
fellows,  or- he  may  waste  his  time  and  drift  about 
aimlessly. 

The  astral  world  extends  nearly  to  the  mean  dis- 
tance of  the  orbit  of  the  moon ;  but  though  the  whole 
of  this  realm  is  open  to  any  of  its  inhabitants  who 
have  not  permitted  the  redistribution  of  their  matter, 
the  great  majority  remain  much  nearer  to  the  surface 
of  the  earth.  The  matter  of  the  different  subdivisions 
of  that  world  interpenetrates  with  perfect  freedom, 
but  there  is  on  the  whole  a  general  tendency  for  the 
denser  matter  to  settle  towards  the  center.  The  con- 
ditions are  much  like  those  which  obtain  in  a  bucket 
of  water  which  contains  in  suspension  a  number  of 


72  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

kinds  of  matter  of  different  degrees  of  density.  Since 
the  water  is  kept  in  perpetual  motion,  th'e  different 
kinds  of  matter  are  diffused  through  it;  but  in  spite 
of  that,  the  densest  matter  is  found  in  greatest  quan- 
tity nearest  to  the  bottom.  So  that  though  we  must 
not  at  all  think  of  the  various  subdivisions  of  the 
astral  world  as  lying  above  one  another  as  do  the 
coats  of  an  onion,  it  is  nevertheless  true  that  the 
average  arrangement  of  the  matter  of  those  subdi- 
visions partakes  somewhat  of  that  general  character. 
Astral  matter  interpenetrates  physical  matter  pre- 
cisely as  though  it  were  not  there,  but  each  subdi- 
vision of  physical  matter  has  a  strong  attraction  for 
astral  matter  of  the  corresponding  subdivision. 
Hence  it  arises  that  every  physical  body  has  its  astral 
counterpart.  If  I  have  a  glass  of  water  standing 
upon  a  table,  the  glass  and  the  table,  being  of  phys- 
ical matter  in  the  solid  state,  are  interpenetrated  by 
astral  matter  of  the  lowest  subdivision.  The  water 
in  the  glass,  being  liquid,  is  interpenetrated  by  what 
we  may  call  astral  liquid — that  is,  by  astral  matter 
of  the  sixth  subdivision ;  whereas  the  air  surrounding 
both,  being  physical  matter  in  the  gaseous  condition, 
is  entirely  interpenetrated  by  astral  gaseous  matter 
— that  is,  astral  matter  of  the  fifth  subdivision. 

But  just  as  air,  water,  glass  and  table  are  alike 
interpenetrated  all  the  time  by  the  finer  physical 
matter  which  we  have  called  etheric,  so  are  all  the 
astral  counterparts  interpenetrated  by  the  finer  astral 
matter  of  the  higher  subdivisions  which  correspond 
to  the  etheric.  But  even  the  astral  solid  is  less  dense 
than  the  finest  of  the  physical  ethers. 


AFTER  DEATH  73 

The  man  who  finds  himself  in  the  astral  world 
after  death,  if  he  has  not  submitted  to  the  rearrange- 
ment of  the  matter  of  his  body,  will  notice  but  little 
difference  from  physical  life.  He  can  float  about  in 
any  direction  at  will,  but  in  actual  fact  he  usually 
stays  in  the  neighborhood  to  which  he  is  accustomed. 
He  is  still  able  to  perceive  his  house,  his  room,  his 
furniture,  his  relations,  his  friends.  The  living,  when 
ignorant  of  the  higher  worlds,  suppose  themselves  to 
have  "lost"  those  who  have  laid  aside  their  physical 
bodies;  but  the  dead  are  never  for  a  moment  under 
the  impression  that  they  have  lost  the  living. 

Functioning  as  they  are  in  the  astral  body,  the 
dead  can  no  longer  see  the  physical  bodies  of 
those  whom  they  have  left  behind;  but  they  do  see 
their  astral  bodies,  and  as  those  are  exactly  the  same 
in  outline  as  the  physical,  they  are  perfectly  aware 
of  the  presence  of  their  friends.  They  see  each  one 
surrounded  by  a  faint  ovoid  of  luminous  mist,  and 
if  they  happen  to  be  observant,  they  may  notice 
various  other  small  changes  in  their  surroundings; 
but  it  is  at  least  quite  clear  to  them  that  they  have 
not  gone  away  to  some  distant  heaven  or  hell,  but 
still  remain  in  touch  with  the  world  which  they 
know,  although  they  see  it  at  a  somewhat  different 
angle. 

The  dead  man  has  the  astral  body  of  his  living 
friend  obviously  before  him,  so  he  cannot  think  of 
him  as  lost ;  but  while  the  friend  is  awake,  the  dead 
man  will  not  be  able  to  make  any  impression  upon 
him,  for  the  consciousness  of  the  friend  is  then  in  the 
physical  world,  and  his  astral  body  is  being  used 


74  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

only  as  a  bridge.  The  dead  man  cannot  therefore 
communicate  with  his  friend,  nor  can  he  read  Ms 
friend's  higher  thoughts;  but  he  will  see  by  the 
change  in  color  in  the  astral  body  any  emotion  which 
that  friend  may  feel,  and  with  a  little  practice  and 
observation  he  may  easily  learn  to  read  all  those 
thoughts  of  his  friend  which  have  in  them  anything 
of  self  or  of  desire. 

When  the  friend  falls  asleep  the  whole  position  is 
changed.  He  is  then  also  conscious  in  the  astral 
world  side  by  side  with  the  dead  man,  and  they  can 
communicate  in  'every  respect  as  freely  as  they  could 
during  physical  life.  The  emotions  felt  by  the  living 
react  strongly  upon  the  dead  who  love  them.  If  the 
former  give  way  to  grief,  the  latter  cannot  but  suffer 
severely. 

The  conditions  of  life  after  death  are  almost  in- 
finite in  their  variety,  but  they  can  be  calculated 
without  difficulty  by  any  one  who  will  take  the  trou- 
ble to  understand  the  astral  world  and  to  consider 
the  character  of  the  person  concerned.  That  char- 
acter is  not  in  the  slightest  degree  changed  by  death; 
the  man's  thoughts,  emotions  and  desires  are  exactly 
the  same  as  before.  He  is  in  'every  way  the  same 
man,  minus  his  physical  body,  and  his  happiness  or 
misery  depends  upon  the  extent  to  which  this  loss 
of  the  physical  body  affects  him. 

If  his  longings  have  been  such  as  need  a  physical 
body  for  their  gratification,  he  is  likely  to  suffer  con- 
siderably. Such  a  craving  manifests  itself  as  a  vibra- 
tion in  the  astral  body,  and  while  we  are  still  in 
this  world  most  of  its  strength  is  employed  in  setting 


AFTER  DEATH  75 

in  motion  the  heavy  physical  particles.  Desire  is 
therefore  a  far  greater  force  in  the  astral  life  than 
in  the  physical,  and  if  the  man  has  not  been  in  the 
habit  of  controlling  it,  and  if  in  this  new  life  it 
cannot  be  satisfied,  it  may  cause  him  great  and  long- 
continued  trouble. 

Take  as  an  illustration  the  extreme  case  of  a 
drunkard  or  a  sensualist.  Here  we  have  a  lust  which 
has  been  strong  enough  during  physical  life  to  over- 
power reason,  common-sense  and  all  the  feelings  of 
decency  and  of  family  affection.  After  death  the 
man  finds  himself  in  the  astral  world  feeling  the  ap- 
petite perhaps  a  hundred  times  more  strongly,  yet 
absolutely  unable  to  satisfy  it  because  he  has  lost 
the  physical  body.  Such  a  life  is  a  very  real  hell — 
the  only  hell  there  is;  yet  no  one  is  punishing  him; 
he  is  reaping  the  perfectly  natural  result  of  his  own 
action.  Gradually  as  time  passes  this  force  of  desire 
wears  out,  but  only  at  the  cost  of  terrible  suffering 
for  the  man,  because  to  him  every  day  seems  as  a 
thousand  years.  He  has  no  measure  of  time  such  as 
we  have  in  the  physical  world.  He  can  measure  it 
only  by  his  sensations.  From  a  distortion  of  this 
fact  has  come  the  blasphemous  idea  of  eternal 
damnation. 

Many  other  cases  less  extreme  than  this  will  read- 
ily suggest  themselves,  in  which  a  hankering  which 
cannot  be  fulfilled  may  prove  itself  a  torture.  A 
more  ordinary  case  is  that  of  a  man  who  has  no 
particular  vices,  such  as  drink  or  sensuality,  but  yet 
has  been  attached  entirely  to  things  of  the  physical 
world,  and  has  lived  a  life  devoted  to  business  or  to 


76  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

aimless  social  functions.  For  him  the  astral  world 
is  a  place  of  weariness ;  the  only  things  for  which  he 
craves  are  no  longer  possible  for  him,  for  in  the  astral 
world  there  is  no  business  to  be  done,  and,  though 
he  may  have  as  much  companionship  as  he  wishes, 
society  is  now  for  him  a  very  different  matter,  be- 
cause all  the  pretences  upon  which  it  is  usually 
based  in  this  world  are  no  longer  possible. 

These  cases,  however,  are  only  the  few,  and  for 
most  people  the  state  after  death  is  much  happier 
than  life  upon  earth.  The  first  feeling  of  which  the 
dead  man  is  usually  conscious  is  one  of  the  most 
wonderful  and  delightful  freedom.  He  has  abso- 
lutely nothing  to  worry  about,  and  no  duties  rest 
upon  him,  except  those  which  he  chooses  to  impose 
upon  himself.  For  all  but  a  very  small  minority, 
physical  life  is  spent  in  doing  what  the  man  would 
much  rather  not  do;  but  he  has  to  do  it  in  order  to 
support  himself  or  his  wife  and  family.  In  the 
astral  world  no  support  is  necessary;  food  is  no 
longer  needed,  shelter  is  not  required,  since  toe  is 
entirely  unaffected  by  heat  or  cold ;  and  each  man  by 
the  mere  exercise  of  his  thought  clothes  himself  as 
he  wishes.  For  the  first  time  since  early  childhood 
the  man  is  entirely  free  to  spend  the  whole  of  his 
time  in  doing  just  exactly  what  he  likes. 

His  capacity  for  every  kind  of  enjoyment  is 
greatly  enhanced,  if  only  that  enjoyment  does  not 
need  a  physical  body  for  its  expression.  If  he  loves 
the  beauties  of  nature,  it  is  now  within  his  power  to 
travel  with  great  rapidity  and  without  fatigue  over 
the  whole  world,  to  contemplate  all  its  loveliest  spots, 


AFTER  DEATH  77 

and  to  explore  its  most  secret  recesses.  If  h'e  delights 
in  art,  all  the  world's  masterpieces  are  at  his  dis- 
posal. If  he  loves  music,  he  can  go  where  he  will 
to  hear  it,  and  it  will  now  mean  much  more  to  him 
than  it  has  ever  meant  before;  for  though  he  can 
no  longer  hear  the  physical  sounds,  he  can  receive 
the  whole  effect  of  the  music  into  himself  in  far 
fuller  measure  than  in  this  lower  world.  If  he  is  a 
student  of  science,  he  can  not  only  visit  the  great 
scientific  men  of  the  world,  and  catch  from  them 
such  thoughts  and  ideas  as  may  be  within  his  com- 
prehension, but  also  he  can  undertake  researches  of 
his  own  into  the  science  of  this  higher  world,  seeing 
much  more  of  what  he  is  doing  than  has  ever  before 
been  possible  to  him.  Best  of  all,  he  whose  great 
delight  in  this  world  has  been  to  help  his  fellowmen 
will  still  find  ample  scope  for  his  philanthropic  ef- 
forts. 

Men  are  no  longer  hungry,  cold,  or  suffering  from 
disease  in  this  astral  world;  but  there  are  vast  num- 
bers who,  being  ignorant,  desire  knowledge — who,  be- 
ing still  in  the  grip  of  desire  for  earthly  things,  n'eed 
the  explanation  which  will  turn  their  thought  to 
higher  levels — who  have  entangled  themselves  in  a 
web  of  their  own  imaginings,  and  can  be  set  free 
only  by  one  who  understands  these  new  surroundings 
and  can  help  them  to  distinguish  the  facts  of  the 
world  from  their  own  ignorant  misrepresentation  of 
them.  All  these  can  be  helped  by  the  man  of  in- 
telligence and  of  kindly  heart.  Many  men  arrive  in 
the  astral  world  in  utter  ignorance  of  its  conditions, 
not  realizing  at  first  that  they  are  dead,  and  when 


*/8  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

they  do  realize  it  fearing  the  fate  that  may  be  in 
store  for  them,  because  of  false  and  wicked  theo- 
logical teaching.  All  of  these  need  the  cheer  and 
comfort  which  can  only  be  given  to  them  by  a  man 
of  common-sense  who  possesses  some  knowledge  of 
the  facts  of  nature. 

There  is  thus  no  lack  of  the  most  profitable  oc- 
cupation for  any  man  whose  interests  during  his 
physical  life  have  been  rational;  nor  is  there  any 
lack  of  companionship.  Men  whose  tastes  and  pur- 
suits are  similar  drift  naturally  together  there  just 
as  they  do  here;  and  many  realms  of  nature,  which 
during  our  physical  life  are  concealed  by  the  dense 
veil  of  matter,  now  lie  open  for  the  detailed  study 
of  those  who  care  to  examine  them. 

To  a  large  extent  people  make  their  own  surround- 
ings. We  have  already  referred  to  the  seven  sub- 
divisions of  this  astral  world.  Numbering  these  from 
the  highest  and  least  material  downwards,  we  find 
that  they  fall  naturally  into  three  classes — divisions 
one,  two  and  three  forming  one  such  class,  and  four, 
five  and  sixth  another;  while  the  seventh  and  lowest 
of  all  stands  alone.  As  I  have  said,  although  they  all 
interpenetrate,  their  substance  has  a  general  ten- 
dency to  arrange  itself  according  to  its  specific  grav- 
ity, so  that  most  of  the  matter  belonging  to  the 
higher  subdivisions  is  found  at  a  greater  elevation 
above  the  surface  of  the  earth  than  the  bulk  of  the 
matter  of  the  lower  portions. 

Hence,  although  any  person  inhabiting  the  astral 
world  can  move  into  any  part  of  it,  his  natural 
tendency  is  to  float  at  the  level  which  corresponds 


AFTER  DEATH  79 

with  the  specific  gravitly  of  the  heaviest  matter  in 
his  astral  body.  The  man  who  has  not  permitted  the 
rearrangement  of  the  matter  of  his  astral  body  after 
death  is  entirely  free  of  the  whole  astral  world;  but 
the  majority,  who  do  permit  it,  are  not  equally  free 
— not  because  there  is  anything  to  prevent  them  from 
rising  to  the  highest  level  or  sinking  to  the  lowest, 
but  because  they  are  able  to  sense  clearly  only  a 
certain  part  of  that  world. 

I  have  described  something  of  the  fate  of  a  man 
who  is  on  the  lowest  level,  shut  in  by  a  strong  shell 
of  coarse  matter.  Because  of  the  extreme  compara- 
tive density  of  that  matter  he  is  conscious  of  less 
outside  of  his  own  subdivision  than  a  man  at  any 
other  level.  The  general  specific  gravity  of  his  own 
astral  body  tends  to  make  him  float  below  the  sur- 
face of  the  earth.  The  physical  matter  of  the  earth 
is  absolutely  non-existent  to  his  astral  senses,  and 
his  natural  attraction  is  to  that  least  delicate  form 
of  astral  matter  which  is  the  counterpart  of  that 
solid  earth.  A  man  who  has  confined  himself  to  that 
lowest  subdivision  will  therefore  usually  find  himself 
floating  in  darkness  and  cut  off  to  a  great  extent 
from  others  of  the  dead,  whose  lives  have  been  such 
as  to  keep  them  on  a  higher  level. 

Divisions  four,  five  and  six  of  the  astral  world  (to 
which  most  people  are  attracted)  have  for  their 
background  the  astral  counterpart  of  the  physical 
world  in  which  we  live,  and  all  its  familiar  ae~ 
cessories.  Life  in  the  sixth  subdivision  is  simply  like 
our  ordinary  life  on  this  earth  minus  the  physical 
body  and  its  necessities;  while  as  it  ascends  through 


80  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPH1 

the  fifth  and  fourth  divisions  it  becomes  less  and 
less  material  and  is  more  and  more  withdrawn  from 
our  lower  world  and  its  interests. 

The  first,  second  and  third  sections,  though  occupy- 
ing the  same  space,  yet  give  the  impression  of  being 
much  further  removed  from  the  physical,  and  cor- 
respondingly less  material.  Men  who  inhabit  these 
levels  lose  sight  of  the  earth  and  its  belongings ;  they 
are  usually  deeply  self-absorbed,  and  to  a  large  ex- 
tent create  their  own  surroundings,  though  these  are 
sufficiently  objective  to  be  perceptible  to  other  men 
of  their  level,  and  also  to  clairvoyant  vision. 

This  region  is  the  summerland  of  which  we  hear 
in  spiritualistic  circles — the  world  in  which,  by  the 
exercise  of  their  thought,  the  dead  call  into  tempor- 
ary existence  their  houses  and  schools  and  cities. 
These  surroundings,  though  fanciful  from  our  point 
of  view,  are  to  the  dead  as  real  as  houses,  temples 
or  churches  built  of  stone  are  to  us,  and  many  people 
live  very  contentedly  there  for  a  number  of  years  in 
the  midst  of  all  these  thought  creations. 

Some  of  the  scenery  thus  produced  is  very  beau- 
tiful ;  it  includes  lovely  lakes,  magnificent  mountains, 
pleasant  flower-gardens,  decidedly  superior  to  any- 
thing in  the  physical  world;  though  on  the  other 
hand  it  also  contains  much  which  to  the  trained 
clairvoyant  (who  has  learned  to  see  things  as  they 
are)  appears  ridiculous — as,  for  example,  the  endeav- 
ors of  the  unlearned  to  make  a  thought-form  of  some 
of  the  curious  symbolic  descriptions  contained  in 
their  various  scriptures.  An  ignorant  peasant's 
thought-image  of  a  beast  full  of  eyes  within,  or  of  a 


AFTEE  DEATH  81 

sea  of  glass  mingled  with  fire,  is  naturally  often 
grotesque,  although  to  its  maker  it  is  perfectly  satis- 
factory. This  astral  world  is  full  of  thought-created 
figures  and  landscapes.  Men  of  all  religions  image 
here  their  deities  and  their  respective  conceptions 
of  paradise,  and  enjoy  themselves  greatly  among; 
these  dream-forms  until  they  pass  into  the  mental 
world  and  come  into  touch  with  something  nearer 
to  reality. 

Every  one  after  death — any  ordinary  person,  that 
is,  in  whose  case  the  rearrangement  of  the  matter  of 
the  astral  body  has  been  made — has  to  pass  through 
all  these  subdivisions  in  turn.  It  does  not  follow 
that  every  one  is  conscious  in  all  of  them.  The  ordin- 
arily decent  person  has  in  his  astral  body  but  little 
of  the  matter  of  its  lowest  portion — by  no  means 
enough  to  construct  a  heavy  shell.  The  redistribution 
puts  on  the  outside  of  the  body  its  densest  matter; 
in  the  ordinary  man  this  is  usually  matter  of  the 
sixth  subdivision,  mixed  with  a  little  of  the  seventh, 
and  so  he  finds  himself  viewing  the  counterpart  of 
the  physical  world. 

The  ego  is  steadily  withdrawing  into  himself,  and 
as  he  withdraws  he  leaves  behind  him  level  after 
level  of  this  astral  matter.  So  the  length  of  the 
man 's  detention  in  any  section  of  the  astral  world 
is  precisely  in  proportion  to  the  amount  of  its  matter 
which  is  found  in  his  astral  body,  and  that  in  turn 
depends  upon  the  life  he  has  lived,  the  desires  he 
has  indulged,  and  the  class  of  matter  which  by  so 
doing  he  has  attracted  towards  him  and  built  into 
himself.  Finding  himself  then  in  the  sixth  section, 


82  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

still  hovering  about  the  places  and  persons  with 
which  he  was  most  closely  connected  while  on  earth, 
the  average  man  as  time  passes  on  finds  the  earthly 
surroundings  gradually  growing  dimmer  and  be- 
coming of  less  and  less  importance  to  him,  and  he 
tends  more  and  more  to  mold  his  entourage  into 
agreement  with  the  more  persistent  of  his  thoughts. 
By  the  time  that  he  reaches  the  third  level  he  finds 
that  this  characteristic  has  entirely  superseded  the 
vision  of  the  realities  of  the  astral  world. 

The  second  subdivision  is  a  shade  less  material 
than  the  third,  for  if  the  latter  is  the  summerland 
of  the  spiritualists,  the  former  is  the  material  heaven 
of  the  more  ignorantly  orthodox;  while  the  first  or 
highest  level  appears  to  be  the  special  home  of  those 
who  during  life  have  devoted  themselves  to  material- 
istic but  intellectual  pursuits,  following  them  not  for 
the  sake  of  benefiting  their  fellowmen,  but  either 
from  motives  of  selfish  ambition  or  simply  for  the 
sake  of  intellectual  exercise.  All  these  people  are 
perfectly  happy.  Later  on  they  will  reach  a  stage 
when  they  can  appreciate  something  much  higher, 
and  when  that  stage  comes  they  will  find  the  higher 
ready  for  them. 

In  this  astral  life  people  of  the  same  nation  and 
of  the  same  interests  tend  to  keep  together,  precisely 
as  they  do  here.  The  religious  people,  for  example, 
who  imagine  for  themselves  a  material  heaven,  do 
not  at  all  interfere  with  men  of  other  faiths  whose 
ideas  of  celestial  joy  are  different.  There  is  nothing 
to  prevent  a  Christian  from  drifting  into  the  heaven 
of  the  Hindu  or  the  Muhammadan,  but  he  is  little 


AFTEE  DEATH  83 

likely  to  do  so,  because  his  interests  and  attractions 
are  all  in  the  heaven  of  his  own  faith,  along  with 
friends  who  have  shared  that  faith  with  him.  This 
is  by  no  means  the  true  heaven  described  by  any  of 
the  religions,  but  only  a  gross  and  material  misrepre- 
sentation of  it;  the  real  thing  will  be  found  when 
we  come  to  consider  the  mental  world. 

The  dead  man  who  has  not  permitted  the  re- 
arrangement of  the  matter  of  his  astral  body  is  free 
of  the  entire  world,  and  can  wander  all  over  it  at 
will,  seeing  the  whole  of  whatever  he  examines,  in- 
stead of  only  a  part  of  it  as  the  others  do.  He  does 
not  find  it  inconveniently  crowded,  for  the  astral 
world  is  much  larger  than  the  surface  of  the  phys- 
ical earth,  while  its  population  is  somewhat  smaller, 
because  the  average  life  of  humanity  in  the  astral 
world  is  shorter  than  the  average  in  the  physical. 
Not  only  the  dead,  however,  are  the  inhabitants  of 
this  astral  world,  but  always  about  one-third  of  the 
living  as  well,  who  have  temporarily  left  their  phys- 
ical bodies  behind  them  in  sleep.  The  astral  world 
has  also  a  great  number  of  non-human  inhabitants, 
some  of  them  far  below  the  level  of  man,  and  some 
considerably  above  him.  The  nature-spirits  form  an 
enormous  kingdom,  some  of  whose  members  exist  in 
the  astral  world,  and  make  a  large  part  of  its  popu- 
lation. This  vast  kingdom  exists  in  the  physical 
world  also,  for  many  of  its  orders  wear  etheric 
bodies,  and  are  only  just  beyond  the  range  of  ordin- 
ary physical  sight.  Indeed,  circumstances  not  infre- 
quently occur  under  which  they  can  be  seen,  and  in 
many  lonely  mountain  districts  these  appearances 


84  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

are  traditional  among  the  peasants,  by  whom  they 
are  commonly  spoken  of  as  fairies,  good  people, 
pixies  or  brownies. 

They  are  protean,  but  usually  prefer  to  wear  a 
miniature  human  form.  Since  they  are  not  yet  in- 
dividualized, they  may  be  thought  of  almost  as  eth- 
eric  and  astral  animals;  yet  many  of  them  are  in- 
tellectually quite  equal  to  average  humanity.  They 
have  their  nations  and  types  just  as  we  have,  and 
they  are  often  grouped  into  four  great  classes,  and 
called  the  spirits  of  earth,  water,  fire  and  air.  Only 
the  members  of  the  last  of  these  four  divisions 
normally  reside  in  the  astral  world,  but  their  num- 
bers are  so  prodigious  that  they  are  everywhere 
present  in  it. 

Another  great  kingdom  has  its  representatives  here 
— the  kingdom  of  the  angels  (called  in  India  the 
devas).  This  is  a  body  of  beings  who  stand  far 
higher  in  evolution  than  man,  and  only  the  lowest 
fringe  of  their  hosts  touches  the  astral  world — a 
fringe  whose  constituent  members  are  perhaps  at 
about  the  level  of  development  of  what  we  should 
call  a  distinctly  good  man. 

We  are  neither  the  only  nor  even  the  principal 
inhabitants  of  our  solar  system;  there  are  other 
lines  of  evolution  running  parallel  with  our  own 
which  do  not  pass  through  humanity  at  all,  though 
they  must  all  pass  through  a  level  corresponding  to 
that  of  humanity.  On  one  of  these  other  lines  of 
evolution  are  the  nature-spirits  above  described,  and 
at  a  higher  level  of  that  line  comes  this  great  king- 
dom of  the  angels.  At  our  present  level  of  evolution 


AFTER  DEATH  85 

they  come  into  obvious  contact  with  us  only  very 
rarely,  but  as  we  develop  we  shall  be  likely  to  see 
more  of  them. 

When  all  the  man's  lower  emotions  have  worn 
themselves  out — all  emotions,  I  mean,  which  have 
in  them  any  thought  of  self — his  life  in  the  astral 
world  is  over,  and  the  ego  passes  on  into  the  mental 
world.  This  is  not  in  any  sense  a  movement  in  space ; 
it  is  simply  that  the  steady  process  of  withdrawal 
has  now  passed  beyond  even  the  finest  kind  of  astral 
matter;  so  that  the  man's  consciousness  is  focussed 
in  the  mental  world.  His  astral  body  has  not  entirely 
disintegrated,  though  it  is  in  process  of  doing  so, 
and  he  leaves  behind  him  an  astral  corpse,  just  as 
at  a  previous  stage  of  the  withdrawal  he  left  behind 
him  a  physical  corpse.  There  is  a  certain  difference 
between  the  two  which  should  be  noticed,  because  of 
the  consequences  which  ensue  from  it. 

When  the  man  leaves  his  physical  body  his  separa- 
tion from  it  should  be  complete,  and  generally  is  so ; 
but  this  is  not  the  case  with  the  much  finer  matter 
of  the  astral  body.  In  the  course  of  his  physical  life 
the  ordinary  man  usually  entangles  himself  so  much 
in  astral  matter  (which,  from  another  point  of  view, 
means  that  he  identifies  himself  so  closely  with  his 
lower  desires)  that  the  indrawing  force  of  the  ego 
cannot  entirely  separate  him  from  it  again.  Con- 
sequently, when  he  finally  breaks  away  from  the 
astral  body  and  transfers  his  activities  to  the  mental, 
he  loses  a  little  of  himself,  he  leaves  some  of  himself 
behind  imprisoned  in  the  matter  of  the  astral  body. 

This  gives  a   certain  remnant  of  vitality  to  the 


86  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

astral  corpse,  so  that  it  still  moves  freely  in  the 
astral  world,  and  may  easily  be  mistaken  by  the 
ignorant  for  the  man  himself — the  more  so  as  such 
fragmentary  consciousness  as  still  remains  to  it  is 
part  of  the  man,  and  therefore  it  naturally  regards 
itself  and  speaks  of  itself  as  the  man.  It  retains 
his  memories,  but  is  only  a  partial  and  unsatisfactory 
representation  of  him.  Sometimes  in  spiritualistic 
seances  one  comes  into  contact  with  an  entity  of  this 
description,  and  wonders  how  it  is  that  one's  friend 
has.  deteriorated  so  much  since  his  death.  To  this 
fragmentary  entity  we  give  the  name  "shade." 

At  a  later  stage  even  this  fragment  of  conscious- 
ness dies  out  of  the  astral  body,  but  does  not  return 
to  the  ego  to  whom  it  originally  belonged.  Even  then 
the  astral  corpse  still  remains,  but  when  it  is  quite 
without  any  trace  of  its  former  life  we  call  it  a 
"shell."  Of  itself  a  shell  cannot  communicate  at  a 
seance,  or  take  any  action  of  any  sort;  but  such 
shells  are  frequently  seized  upon  by  sportive  nature- 
spirits  and  used  as  temporary  habitations.  A  shell 
so  occupied  can  communicate  at  a  seance  and  mas- 
querade as  its  original  owner,  since  some  of  his 
characteristics  and  certain  portions  of  his  memory 
can  be  evoked  by  the  nature-spirit  from  his  astral 
corpse. 

When  a  man  falls  asleep,  he  withdraws  in  his 
astral  body,  leaving  the  whole  of  the  physical  vehicle 
behind  him.  When  he  dies,  he  draws  out  with  him 
the  etheric  part  of  the  physical  body,  and  conse- 
quently has  usually  at  least  a  moment  of  unconscious- 
ness while  he  is  freeing  himself  from  it.  The  etheric 


AFTEE  DEATH  87 

double  is  not  a  vehicle,  and  cannot  be  used  as  such; 
so  when  the  man  is  surrounded  by  it,  he  is  for  the 
moment  able  to  function  neither  in  the  physical 
world  nor  the  astral.  Some  men  succeed  in  shaking 
themselves  free  of  this  etheric  envelope  in  a  few 
moments;  others  rest  within  it  for  hours,  days  or 
even  weeks. 

Nor  is  it  certain  that,  when  the  man  is  free  from 
this,  he  will  at  once  become  conscious  of  the  astral 
world.  For  there  is  in  him  a  good  deal  of  the  lowest 
kind  of  astral  matter,  so  that  a  shell  of  this  may  be 
made  around  him.  But  he  may  be  quite  unable  to  use 
that  matter.  If  he  has  lived  a  reasonably  decent  life 
he  is  little  in  the  habit  of  employing  it  or  responding 
to  its  vibrations,  and  he  cannot  instantly  acquire  this 
habit.  For  that  reason,  he  may  remain  unconscious 
until  that  matter  gradually  wears  away,  and  some 
matter  which  he  is  in  the  habit  of  using  comes  to  the 
surface.  Such  an  occlusion,  however,  is  scarcely  ever 
complete,  for  even  in  the  most  carefully  made  shell 
some  particles  of  the  finer  matter  occasionally  find 
their  way  to  the  surface,  and  give  him  fleeting 
glimpses  of  his  surroundings. 

There  are  some  men  who  cling  so  desperately  to 
their  physical  vehicles  that  they  will  not  relax  their 
hold  upon  the  etheric  double,  but  strive  with  all 
their  might  to  retain  it.  They  may  be  successful  in 
doing  so  for  a  considerable  time,  but  only  at  the 
cost  of  great  discomfort  to  themselves.  They  are  shut 
out  from  both  worlds,  and  find  themselves  surrounded 
by  a  dense  grey  mist,  through  which  they  se'e  very 
dimly  the  things  of  the  physical  world,  but  with  all 


88  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

the  color  gone  from  them.  It  is  a  terrible  struggle 
to  them  to  maintain  their  position  in  this  miserable 
condition,  and  yet  they  will  not  relax  their  hold 
upon  the  etheric  double,  feeling  that  that  is  at  least 
some  sort  of  link  with  the  only  world  that  they 
know.  Thus  they  drift  about  in  a  condition  of  loneli- 
ness  and  misery  until  from  sheer  fatigue  their  hold 
fails  them,  and  they  slip  into  the  comparative  happi- 
ness of  astral  life.  Sometimes  in  their  desperation 
they  grasp  blindly  at  other  bodies,  and  try  to  enter 
into  them,  and  occasionally  they  are  successful  in 
such  an  attempt.  They  may  seize  upon  a  baby  body, 
ousting  the  feeble  personality  for  whom  it  was  in- 
tended, or  sometimes  they  grasp  even  the  body  of 
an  animal.  All  this  trouble  arises  entirely  from 
ignorance,  and  it  can  never  happen  to  anyone  who 
understands  the  laws  of  life  and  death. 

When  the  astral  life  is  over,  the  man  dies  to  that 
world  in  turn,  and  awakens  in  the  mental  world. 
With  him  it  is  not  at  all  what  it  is  to  the  trained 
clairvoyant,  who  ranges  through  it  and  lives  amidst 
the  surroundings  which  he  finds  there,  precisely  as 
he  would  in  the  physical  or  astral  worlds.  The 
ordinary  man  has  all  through  his  life  been  encom- 
passing himself  with  a  mass  of  thought-forms.  Some 
which  are  transitory,  to  which  he  pays  little  atten- 
tion, nave  fallen  away  from  him  long  ago,  but  those 
which  represent  the  main  interests  of  his  life  are 
always*  with  him,  and  grow  ever  stronger  and 
stronger.  If  some  of  these  have  been  selfish,  their 
force  pours  down  into  astral  matter,  and  he  has  ex- 
hausted them  during  his  life  in  the  astral  world. 


AFTEE  DEATH  89 

But  those  which  are  entirely  unselfish  belong  purely 
to  his  mental  body,  and  so  when  he  finds  himself  in 
the  mental  world  it  is  through  these  special  thoughts 
that  he  is  able  to  appreciate  it. 

His  mental  body  is  by  no  means  fully  developed; 
only  those  parts  of  it  are  really  in  action  to  their 
fullest  extent  which  he  has  used  in  this  altruistic 
manner.  When  he  awakens  again  after  the  second 
death,  his  first  sense  is  one  of  indescribable  bliss  and 
vitality — a  feeling  of  such  utter  joy  in  living  that 
he  needs  for  the  time  nothing  but  just  to  live.  Such 
bliss  is  of  the  essence  of  life  in  all  the  higher  worlds 
of  the  system.  Even  astral  life  has  possibilities  of 
happiness  far  greater  than  anything  that  we  can 
know  in  the  dense  body;  but  the  heaven-life  in  the 
mental  world  is  out  of  all  proportion  more  blissful 
than  the  astral.  In  each  higher  world  the  same  ex- 
perience is  repeated.  Merely  to  live  in  any  one  of 
them  seems  the  uttermost  conceivable  bliss;  and  yet, 
when  the  next  one  is  reached,  it  is  seen  that  it  far 
surpasses  the  last. 

Just  as  the  bliss  increases,  so  does  the  wisdom  and 
the  breadth  of  view.  A  man  fusses  about  in  the 
physical  world  and  thinks  himself  so  busy  and  so 
wise ;  but  when  he  touches  even  the  astral,  he  realizes 
at  once  that  he  has  been  all  the  time  only  a  cater- 
pillar crawling  about  and  seeing  nothing  but  his 
own  leaf,  whereas  now  he  has  spread  his  wings  like 
the  butterfly  and  flown  away  into  the  sunshine  of  a 
wider  world.  Yet,  impossible  as  it  may  seem,  the 
same  experience  is  repeated  when  he  passes  into  the 
mental  world,  for  this  life  is  in  turn  so  much  fuller 


00  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

and  wider  and  more  intense  than  the  astral  that 
once  more  no  comparison  is  possible.  And  yet  beyond 
all  these  there  is  still  another  life,  that  of  the  intu- 
itional world,  unto  which  'even  this  is  but  as  moon- 
light unto  sunlight. 

The  man's  position  in  the  mental  world  differs 
widely  from  that  in  the  astral.  There  he  was  using  a 
body  to  which  he  was  thoroughly  accustomed,  a  body 
which  he  had  been  in  the  habit  of  employing  every 
night  during  sleep.  Here  he  finds  himself  living  in  a 
vehicle  which  he  has  never  used  before — a  vehicle 
furthermore  which  is  very  far  from  being  fully  de- 
veloped— a  vehicle  which  shuts  him  out  to  a  great 
extent  from  the  world  about  him,  instead  of  enabling 
him  to  see  it.  The  lower  part  of  his  nature  burnt 
itstif  away  during  his  purgatorial  life,  and  now  there 
remains  to  him  only  his  higher  and  more  refined 
thoughts,  the  noble  and  unselfish  aspirations  which 
he  poured  out  during  earth-life.  These  cluster  round 
him,  and  make  a  sort  of  shell  about  him,  through 
the  medium  of  which  he  is  able  to  respond  to  -certain 
types  of  vibrations  in  this  refined  matter. 

These  thoughts  which  surround  him  are  the  powers 
by  which  he  draws  upon  the  wealth  of  the  heaven- 
world,  and  he  finds  it  to  be  a  storehouse  of  infinite 
extent,  upon  which  he  is  able  to  draw  just  accord- 
ing to  the  power  of  those  thoughts  and  aspirations; 
for  in  this  world  is  existing  the  infinite  fulness  of 
the  Divine  Mind,  open  in  all  its  limitless  affluence  to 
every  soul,  just  in  proportion  as  that  soul  has  quali- 
fied itself  to  receive.  A  man  who  has  already  com- 
pleted his  human  evolution,  who  has  fully  realized 


AFTER  DEATH  91 

and  unfolded  the  divinity  whose  germ  is  within  him, 
finds  the  whole  of  this  glory  within  his  reach;  but 
since  none  of  us  has  yet  done  that,  since  we  are  only 
gradually  rising  towards  that  splendid  consumma- 
tion, it  comes  that  none  of  us  as  yet  can  grasp  that 
entirety. 

But  each  draws  from  it  and  cognizes  so  much  of 
it  as  he  has  by  previous  effort  prepared  himself  to 
take.  Different  individuals  bring  very  different  ca- 
pacities; they  tell  us  in  the  East  that  each  man 
brings  his  own  cup,  and  some  of  the  cups  are  large 
and  some  are  small,  but  small  or  large  every  cup  is 
filled  to  its  utmost  capacity;  the  sea  of  bliss  holds 
far  more  than  enough  for  all. 

A  man  can  look  out  upon  all  this  glory  and  beauty 
only  through  the  windows  which  he  himself  has 
made.  Every  one  of  these  thought-forms  is  such  a 
window,  through  which  response  may  come  to  him 
from  the  forces  without.  If  during  his  earth-life  he 
has  chiefly  regarded  physical  things,  then  he  has 
made  for  himself  but  few  windows  through  which 
this  higher  glory  can  shine  in  upon  him.  Yet  every 
man  who  is  above  the  lowest  savage  must  have  had 
some  touch  of  pure  unselfish  feeling,  even  if  it  were 
but  once  in  all  his  life,  and  that  will  be  a  window 
for  him  now. 

The  ordinary  man  is  not  capable  of  any  great 
activity  in  this  mental  world;  his  condition  is  chiefly 
receptive,  and  his  vision  of  anything  outside  his  own 
shell  of  thought  is  of  the  most  limited  character.  He 
is  surrounded  by  living  forces,  mighty  angelic  in- 
habitants of  this  glorious  world,  and  many  of  their 


92  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

orders  are  very  sensitive  to  certain  aspirations  of 
man  and  readily  respond  to  them.  But  a  man  can 
take  advantage  of  th'ese  only  in  so  far  as  he  has  al- 
ready prepared  himself  to  profit  by  them,  for  his 
thoughts  and  aspirations  are  only  along  certain 
lines,  and  he  cannot  suddenly  form  new  lines.  There 
are  many  directions  which  the  higher  thought  may 
take — some  of  them  personal  and  some  impersonal. 
Among  the  latter  are  art,  music  and  philosophy ;  and 
a  man  whose  interest  lay  along  any  one  of  these 
lines  finds  both  nreasureless  enjoyment  and  unlimited 
instruction  waiting  for  him — that  is,  the  amount  of 
enjoyment  and  instruction  is  limited  only  by  his 
power  of  perception. 

We  find  a  large  number  of  people  whose  only 
higher  thoughts  are  those  connected  with  affection 
and  devotion.  If  a  man  loves  another  deeply  or  if 
he  feeis  strong  devotion  to  a  personal  deity,  he  makes 
a  strong  mental  image  of  that  friend  or  of  the  deity, 
and  the  object  of  his  feeling  is  often  present  in  his 
mind.  Inevitably  he  takes  that  mental  image  into 
the  heaven- world  with  him,  because  it  is  to  that  level 
of  matter  that  it  naturally  belongs. 

Take  first  the  case  of  affection.  The  love  which 
forms  and  retains  such  an  image  is  a  very  powerful 
force — a  force  which  is  strong  enough  to  reach  and 
to  act  upon  the  ego  of  his  friend  in  the  higher  part 
of  the  mental  world.  It  is  that  ego  that  is  the  real 
man  whom  he  loves — not  the  physical  body  which  is 
so  partial  a  representation  of  him.  The  ego  of  the 
friend,  feeling  this  vibration,  at  once  and  eagerly 
responds  to  it,  and  pours  himself  into  the  thought- 


AFTEB  DEATH  93 

form  which  has  been  made  for  him;  so  that  the 
man's  friend  is  truly  present  with  him  more  vividly 
than  ever  before.  To  this  result  it  makes  no  differ- 
ence whatever  whether  the  friend  is  what  we  call 
living  or  dead;  the  appeal  is  made  not  to  the  frag- 
ment of  the  friend  which  is  sometimes  imprisoned  in 
a  physical  body,  but  to  the  man  himself  on  his  own 
tru'e  level ;  and  he  always  responds.  A  man  who  has 
a  hundred  friends  can  simultaneously  and  fully 
respond  to  the  affection  of  every  one  of  them,  for  no 
number  of  representations  on  a  lower  level  can  ex- 
haust the  infinity  of  the  ego. 

Thus  every  man  in  his  heaven-life  has  around  him 
all  the  friends  for  whose  company  he  wishes,  and 
they  are  for  him  always  at  their  best,  because  he 
himself  makes  for  them  the  thought-form  through 
which  they  manifest  to  him.  In  our  limited  physical 
world  we  are  so  accustomed  to  thinking  of  our  friend 
as  only  the  limited  manifestation  which  we  know  in 
the  physical  world,  that  it  is  at  first  difficult  for  us 
to  realize  the  grandeur  of  the  conception;  when  we 
can  realize  it,  we  shall  see  how  much  nearer  we  are 
in  truth  to  our  friends  in  the  heaven-life  than  we  ever 
were  on  earth.  The  same  is  true  in  the  case  of  de- 
votion. The  man  in  the  heaven-world  is  two  great 
stages  n'earer  to  the  object  of  his  devotion  than  he 
was  during  physical  life,  and  so  his  experiences  are 
of  a  far  more  transcendent  character. 

In  this  mental  world,  as  in  the  astral,  there  are 
seven  subdivisions.  The  first,  second  and  third  are 
the  habitat  of  the  ego  in  his  causal  body,  so  the 
mental  body  contains  matter  of  the  remaining  four 


94  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

only,  and  it  is  in  those  sections  that  his  heaven-life 
is  passed.  Man  does  not,  however,  pass  from  one  to 
the  other  of  these,  as  is  the  case  in  the  astral  world, 
for  there  is  nothing  in  this  life  corresponding  to  the 
rearrangement.  Rather  is  the  man  drawn  to  the 
level  which  best  corresponds  to  the  degree  of  his 
development,  and  on  that  level  he  spends  the  whole 
of  his  life  in  the  mental  body.  Each  man  makes  his 
own  conditions,  so  that  the  number  of  varieties  is 
infinite. 

Speaking  broadly,  we  may  say  that  the  dominant 
characteristic  observed  in  the  lowest  portion  is  un- 
selfish family  affection.  Unselfish  it  must  be,  or  it 
would  find  no  place  here;  all  selfish  tinges,  if  there 
were  any,  worked  out  their  results  in  the  astral 
world.  The  dominant  characteristic  of  the  sixth 
level  may  be  said  to  be  anthropomorphical  religious 
devotion;  while  that  of  the  fifth  section  is  devotion 
expressing  itself  in  active  work  of  some  sort.  All 
these — the  fifth,  sixth  and  seventh  subdivisions — are 
concerned  with  the  working  out  of  devotion  to  per- 
sonalities (either  to  one's  family  and  friends  or  to  a 
personal  deity)  rather  than  the  wider  devotion  to 
humanity  for  its  own  sake,  which  finds  its  expression 
in  the  next  section.  The  activities  of  this  fourth 
stage  are  varied.  They  can  best  be  arranged  in  four 
main  divisions:  unselfish  pursuit  of  spiritual  knowl- 
edge; high  philosophy  or  scientific  thought;  literary 
or  artistic  ability  exercised  for  unselfish  purposes; 
and  service  for  the  sake  of  service. 

Even  to  this  glorious  heaven-life  there  comes  an 


AFTEB  DEATH  95 

end,  and  then  the  mental  body  in  its  turn  drops 
away  as  the  others  have  done,  and  the  man's  life  in 
his  causal  body  begins.  Here  the  man  needs  no  win- 
dows, for  this  is  his  true  home  and  all  his  walls  have 
fallen  away.  The  majority  of  men  have  as  yet  but 
very  little  consciousness  at  such  a  height  as  this; 
they  rest  dreamily  unobservant  and  scarcely  awake, 
but  such  vision  as  they  have  is  true,  however  limited  it 
may  be  by  their  lack  of  development.  Still,  every 
time  they  return,  these  limitations  will  be  smaller, 
and  they  themselves  will  be  greater;  so  that  this 
truest  life  will  be  wider  and  fuller  for  them. 

As  this  improvement  continues,  this  causal  life 
grows  longer  and  longer,  assuming  an  ever  larger 
proportion  as  compared  to  the  existence  at  lower 
levels.  And  as  he  grows,  the  man  becomes  capable 
not  only  of  receiving  but  also  of  giving.  Then  indeed 
is  his  triumph  approaching,  for  he  is  learning  the 
lesson  of  the  Christ,  learning  the  crowning  glory  of 
sacrifice,  the  supreme  delight  of  pouring  out  all  his 
life  for  the  helping  of  his  fellow-men,  the  devotion 
of  the  self  to  the  all,  of  celestial  strength  to  human 
service,  of  all  those  splendid  heavenly  forces  to  the 
aid  of  the  struggling  sons  of  earth.  That  is  part  of 
the  life  that  lies  before  us;  these  are  some  of  the 
steps  which  even  we  who  are  at  the  very  bottom  of 
the  golden  ladder  may  see  rising  above  us,  so  that 
we  may  report  them  to  those  who  have  not  seen  as 
yet,  in  order  that  they  too  may  open  their  eyes  to  the 
unimaginable  splendor  which  surrounds  them  here 
and  now  in  this  dull  daily  life.  This  is  part  of  the 


96  A  TEXTBOOK  OP  THEOSOPHY 

gospel  of  Theosophy — the  certainty  of  this  sublime 
future  for  all.  It  is  certain  because  it  is  here  al- 
ready, because  to  inherit  it  wfc  have  only  to  fit  our- 
selves for  it. 


CHAPTER    VH 

REINCARNATION 

This  life  of  the  ego  in  his  own  world,  which  is  so 
glorious  and  so  fully  satisfying  for  the  developed 
man,  plays  but  a  very  small  part  in  the  life  of  the 
ordinary  person,  for  in  his  case  the  ego  has  not  yet 
reached  a  sufficient  stage  of  development  to  be  awake 
in  his  causal  body.  In  obedience  to  the  law  of  na- 
ture he  has  withdrawn  into  it,  but  in  doing  so  he  has 
lost  the  sensation  of  vivid  life,  and  his  restless  desire 
to  feel  this  once  more  pushes  him  in  the  direction  of 
another  descent  into  matter. 

This  is  the  scheme  of  evolution  appointed  for  man 
at  the  present  stage — that  he  shall  develop  by 
descending  into  grosser  matter,  and  then  ascend  to 
carry  back  into  himself  the  result  of  the  experiences 
so  obtained.  His  real  life,  therefore,  covers  millions 
of  years,  and  what  we  are  in  the  habit  of  calling  a 
life  is  only  one  day  of  this  greater  existence.  In- 
deed, it  is  in  reality  only  a  small  part  of  one  day; 
for  a  life  of  seventy  years  in  the  physical  world  is 
often  succeded  by  a  period  of  twenty  times  that  length 
spent  in  higher  spheres. 

Every  one  of  us  has  a  long  line  of  these  physical 
lives  behind  him,  and  the  ordinary  man  has  a  fairly 
long  line  still  in  front  of  him.  Each  of  such  lives  is 
a  day  at  school.  The  ego  puts  upon  himself  his 


98  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

garment  of  flesh  and  goes  forth  into  the  school  of 
the  physical  world  to  learn  certain  lessons.  He 
learns  them,  or  does  not  learn  them,  or  partially 
learns  them,  as  the  case  may  be,  during  his  school- 
day  of  earth-life;  then  he  lays  aside  the  vesture  of 
the  flesh  and  returns  home  to  his  own  level  for  rest 
and  refreshment.  In  the  morning  of  each  new  life 
he  takes  up  again  his  lesson  at  the  point  where  he 
left  it  the  night  before.  Some  lessons  he  may  be 
able  to  learn  in  one  day,  while  others  may  take  him 
many  days. 

If  he  is  an  apt  pupil  and  learns  quickly  what  is 
needed,  if  he  obtains  an  intelligent  grasp  of  the 
rules  of  the  school,  and  takes  the  trouble  to  adapt 
his  conduct  to  them,  his  school-life  is  comparatively 
short,  and  when  it  is  over  he  goes  forth  fully 
equipped  into  the  real  life  of  the  higher  worlds  for 
which  all  this  is  only  a  preparation.  Other  egos  are 
duller  boys  who  do  not  learn  so  quickly;  some  of 
them  do  not  understand  the  rules  of  the  school,  and 
through  that  ignorance  are  constantly  breaking 
them;  others  are  wayward,  and  even  when  they  see 
the  rules  they  cannot  at  once  bring  themeslves  to 
act  in  harmony  with  them.  All  of  these  have  a 
longer  school-life,  and  by  their  own  actions  they  de- 
lay their  entry  upon  the  real  life  of  the  higher 
worlds. 

For  this  is  a  school  in  which  no  pupil  ever  fails; 
every  one  must  go  on  to  the  end.  He  has  no  choice 
as  to  that ;  but  the  length  of  time  which  he  will  take 
in  qualifying  himself  for  the  higher  examinations  is 
left  entirely  to  his  own  discretion.  The  wise  pupil, 


EEINCAENATION  99 

seeing  that  school-life  is  not  a  thing  in  itself,  but 
only  a  preparation  for  a  more  glorious  and  far  wider 
life,  endeavors  to  comprehend  as  fully  as  possible 
the  rules  of  his  school,  and  shapes  his  life  in  accord- 
ance with  them  as  closely  as  he  can,  so  that  no  time 
may  be  lost  in  the  learning  of  whatever  lessons  are 
necessary.  He  co-operates  intelligently  with  the 
Teachers,  and  sets  himself  to  do  the  maximum  of 
work  which  is  possible  for  him,  in  order  that  as  soon 
as  he  can  he  may  come  of  age  and  enter  into  his 
kingdom  as  a  glorified  ego. 

Theosophy  explains  to  us  the  laws  under  which 
this  school-life  must  be  lived,  and  in  that  way  gives  a 
great  advantage  to  its  students.  The  first  great  law 
is  that  of  evolution.  Every  man  has  to  become  a 
perfect  man,  to  unfold  to  the  fullest  degree  the  divine 
possibilities  which  lie  latent  within  him,  for  that  un- 
f oldment  is  the  object  of  the  entire  scheme  so  far  as  he 
is  concerned.  This  law  of  evolution  steadily  presses 
him  onward  to  higher  and  higher  achievements.  The 
wise  man  tries  to  anticipate  its  demands— -to  run 
ahead  of  the  necessary  curriculum,  for  in  that  way 
he  not  only  avoids  all  collision  with  it  but  he  obtains 
the  maximum  of  assistance  from  its  action.  The  man 
who  lags  behind  in  the  race  of  life  finds  its  steady 
pressure  constantly  constraining  him — a  pressure 
which,  if  resisted,  rapidly  becomes  painful.  Thus  the 
laggard  on  the  path  of  evolution  has  always  the 
sense  of  being  hunted  and  driven  by  his  fate,  while 
the  man  who  intelligently  co-operates  is  left  perfectly 
free  to  choose  the  direction  in  which  he  shall  move, 
so  long  as  it  is  onward  and  upward. 


100  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

The  second  great  law  under  which  this  evolution  is 
taking  place  is  the  law  of  cause  and  effect.  There 
can  be  no  effect  without  its  cause,  and  every  cause 
must  produce  its  effect.  They  are  in  fact  not  two 
but  one,  for  the  effect  is  really  part  of  the  cause,  and 
he  who  sets  one  in  motion  sets  the  other  also.  There 
is  in  nature  no  such  idea  as  that  of  reward  or  pun- 
ishment, but  only  of  cause  and  effect.  Any  one  can 
see  this  in  connection  with  mechanics  or  chemistry; 
the  clairvoyant  sees  it  equally  clearly  with  regard  to 
the  problems  of  evolution.  The  same  law  obtains  in 
the  higher  as  in  the  lower  worlds ;  there,  as  here,  the 
angle  of  reflection  is  always  equal  to  the  angle  of 
incidence.  It  is  a  law  of  mechanics  that  action  and 
reaction  are  equal  and  opposite.  In  the  almost  in- 
finitely finer  matter  of  the  higher  worlds  the  re- 
action is  by  no  means  always  instantaneous;  it  may 
sometimes  be  spread  over  long  periods  of  time,  but 
it  returns  inevitably  and  exactly. 

Just  as  certain  in  its  working  as  the  mechanical 
law  in  the  physical  world  is  the  higher  law  according 
to  which  the  man  who  sends  out  a  good  thought  or 
does  a  good  action  receives  good  in  return,  while  the 
man  who  sends  out  an  evil  thought  or  does  an  evil 
action,  receives  evil  in  return  with  equal  accuracy — 
once  more,  not  in  the  least  as  a  reward  or  punish- 
ment administered  by  some  external  will,  but  simply 
as  the  definite  and  mechanical  result  of  his  own 
activity.  Man  has  learnt  to  appreciate  a  mechanical 
result  in  the  physical  world,  because  the  reaction  is 
usually  almost  immediate  and  can  be  seen  by  him. 
He  does  not  invariably  understand  the  reaction  in 


EEINOAENATION  101 

the  higher  worlds  because  that  takes  a  wider  sweep, 
and  often  returns  not  in  this  physical  life,  but  in 
some  future  one. 

The  action  of  this  law  affords  the  explanation  of  a 
number  of  the  problems  of  ordinary  life.  It  accounts 
for  the  different  destinies  imposed  upon  people,  and 
also  for  the  differences  in  the  people  themselves.  If 
one  man  is  clever  in  a  certain  direction  and  another 
is  stupid,  it  is  because  in  a  previous  life  the  clever 
man  has  devoted  much  effort  to  practice  in  that  par- 
ticular direction,  while  the  stupid  man  is  trying  it 
for  the  first  time.  The  genius  and  the  precocious 
child  are  examples  not  of  thfc  favoritism  of  some 
deity  but  of  the  result  produced  by  previous  lives  of 
application.  All  the  varied  circumstances  which  sur- 
round us  are  the  result  of  our  own  actions  in  the 
past,  precisely  as  are  the  qualities  of  which  we  find 
ourselves  in  possession.  We  are  what  we  have  made 
ourselves,  and  our  circumstances  are  such  as  we  have 
deserved. 

There  is,  however,  a  certain  adjustment  or  appor- 
tionment of  these  effects.  Though  the  law  is  a  na- 
tural law  and  mechanical  in  its  operation,  there  are 
nevertheless  certain  great  Angels  who  are  concerned 
with  its  administration.  They  cannot  change  by  one 
feather-weight  the  amount  of  the  result  which  fol- 
lows upon  any  given  thought  or  act,  but  they  can 
within  certain  limits  expedite  or  delay  its  action, 
and  decide  what  form  it  shall  take. 

If  this  were  not  done  there  would  be  at  least  a 
possibility  that  in  his  earlier  stages  the  man  might 
blunder  so  seriously  that  the  results  of  his  blunder- 


102  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

ing  might  be  more  than  he  could  bear.  The  plan 
of  the  Deity  is  to  give  man  a  limited  amount  of  free- 
will; if  he  uses  that  small  amount  well,  he  earns 
the  right  to  a  little  more  next  time;  if  he  uses  it 
badly,  suffering  comes  upon  him  as  the  result  of  such 
evil  use,  and  he  finds  himself  restrained  by  the  re- 
sult of  his  previous  actions.  As  the  man  learns  how 
to  use  his  free-will,  more  and  more  of  it  is  entrusted 
to  him,  so  that  he  can  acquire  for  himself  practically 
unbounded  freedom  in  the  direction  of  good,  but 
his  power  to  do  wrong  is  strictly  restricted.  He  can 
progress  as  rapidly  as  he  will,  but  he  cannot  wreck 
his  life  in  his  ignorance.  In  the  earlier  stages  of  the 
savage  life  of  primitive  man  it  is  natural  that  there 
should  be  on  the  whole  more  of  fcvil  than  of  good,  and 
if  the  entire  result  of  his  actions  came  at  once  upon 
a  man  as  yet  so  little  developed,  it  might  well  crush 
the  newly  evolved  powers  which  are  still  so  feeble. 

Besides  this,  the  effects  of  his  actions  are  varied  in 
character.  While  some  of  them  produce  immediate 
results,  others  need  much  more  time  for  their  action, 
and  so  it  comes  to  pass  that  as  the  man  develops  hie 
has  above  him  a  hovering  cloud  of  undischarged  re- 
sults, some  of  them  good,  some  of  them  bad.  Out  of 
this  mass  (which  we  may  regard  for  the  purposes  of 
analogy  much  as  though  it  were  a  debt  owing  to  the 
powers  of  nature)  a  certain  amount  falls  due  in 
each  of  his  successive  births ;  and  that  amount,  so  as- 
signed, may  be  thought  of  as  the  man's  destiny  for 
that  particular  life. 

All  that  it  means  is  that  a  certain  amount  of  joy 
and  a  certain  amount  of  suffering  ane  due  to  him, 


EEINCAENATION  103 

and  will  unavoidably  happen  to  him;  how  he  will 
meet  this  destiny  and  what  use  he  will  make  of  it, 
that  is  left  entirely  to  his  own  option.  It  is  a  certain 
amount  of  force  which  has  to  work  itself  out.  Noth- 
ing can  prevent  the  action  of  that  force,  but  its  ac- 
tion may  always  be  modified  by  the  application  of  a 
new  force  in  another  direction,  just  as  is  the  case 
in  mechanics.  The  result  of  past  evil  is  like  any 
other  debt;  it  may  be  paid  in  one  large  check  upon 
the  bank  of  life — by  some  one  supreme  catastrophe; 
or  it  may  be  paid  in  a  number  of  smaller  notes,  in 
minor  troubles  and  worries;  in  some  cases  it  may 
even  be  paid  in  the  small  change  of  a  vast  number 
of  petty  annoyances.  But  one  thing  is  quite  certain 
— that,  in  some  form  or  other,  paid  it  will  have  to  be. 

The  conditions  of  our  present  life,  then,  are  abso- 
lutely the  result  of  our  own  action  in  the  past;  and 
the  other  side  of  that  statement  is  that  our  actions 
in  this  life  are  building  up  conditions  for  the  next 
one.  A  man  who  finds  himself  limited  either  in 
powers  or  in  outer  circumstances  may  not  always 
be  able  to  make  himself  or  his  conditions  all  that  he 
would  wish  in  this  life ;  but  he  can  certainly  secure 
for  the  next  one  whatever  he  chooses. 

Man's  every  action  ends  not  with  himself,  but 
invariably  affects  others  around  him.  In  some  cases 
this  effect  may  be  comparatively  trivial,  while  in 
others  it  may  be  of  the  most  serious  character.  The 
trivial  results,  whether  good  or  bad,  are  simply  small 
debits  or  credits  in  our  account  with  nature ;  but  the 
greater  effects,  whether  good  or  bad,  make  a  personal 


104  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

account  which  is  to  be  settled  with  the  individual 
concerned. 

A  man  who  gives  a  meal  to  a  hungry  beggar,  or 
cheers  him  by  a  kindly  word,  will  receive  the  result 
of  his  good  action  as  part  of  a  kind  of  general  fund 
of  nature 's  benefits ;  but  one  who  by  some  good  action 
changes  the  whole  current  of  another  man's  life  will 
assuredly  have  to  meet  that  same  man  again  in  a 
future  life,  in  order  that  he  who  has  been  benefited 
may  have  the  opportunity  of  repaying  the  kindness 
that  has  been  done  to  him.  One  who  causes  annoy- 
ance to  another  will  suffer  proportionately  for  it 
somewhere,  somehow,  in  the  future,  though  he  may 
never  meet  again  the  man  whom  he  has  troubled; 
but  one  who  does  serious  harm  to  another,  one  who 
wrecks  his  life  or  retards  his  evolution,  must  cer- 
tainly meet  his  victim  again  at  some  later  point  in 
the  course  of  their  lives,  so  that  he  may  have  the  op- 
portunity, by  kindly  and  self-sacrificing  service,  of 
counterbalancing  the  wrong  which  hs  has  done.  In 
short,  large  debts  must  be  paid  personally,  but  small 
ones  go  into  the  general  fund. 

These  then  are  the  principal  factors  which  de- 
termine the  next  birth  of  the  man.  First  acts  the  great 
law  of  evolution,  and  its  tendency  is  to  press  the 
man  into  that  position  in  which  he  can  most  easily 
develop  the  qualities  which  he  most  needs.  For  the 
purposes  of  the  general  scheme,  humanity  is  divided 
into  great  races,  called  root-races,  which  rule  and  oc- 
cupy the  world  successively.  The  great  Aryan  or 
Indo-Caucasian  race,  which  at  the  present  moment 
includes  the  most  advanced  of  earth's  inhabitants, 


KEINCARNATION  105 

is  one  of  these.  That  which  came  before  it  in  the 
order  of  evolution  was  the  Mongolian  race,  usually 
called  in  Theosophical  books  Atlantean,  because  the 
continent  from  which  it  ruled  the  world  lay  where 
now  roll  the  waters  of  the  Atlantic  ocean.  Before 
that  came  the  Negroid  race,  some  of  whose  descend- 
ants still  exist,  though  by  this  time  much  mingled 
with  offshoots  of  later  races.  From  each  of  these 
great  root-races  there  are  many  offshoots  which  we 
call  sub-races — such,  for  example,  as  the  Romance 
races  or  the  Teutonic;  and  each  of  these  sub-races 
in  turn  divides  itself  into  branch  races,  such  as  the 
French  and  the  Italians,  the  English  and  the  Ger- 
mans. 

These  arrangements  are  made  in  order  that  for 
each  ego  there  may  be  a  wide  choice  of  varying  con- 
ditions and  surroundings.  Each  race  is  especially 
adapted  to  develop  within  its  people  one  or  other  of 
the  qualities  which  are  needed  in  the  course  of  evo- 
lution. In  every  nation  there  exist  an  almost  in- 
finite number  of  diverse  conditions,  riches  and  pov- 
erty, a  wide  field  of  opportunities  or  a  total  lack  of 
them,  facilities  for  development  or  conditions  under 
which  development  is  difficult  or  well-nigh  impossi- 
ble. Amidst  all  these  infinite  possibilities  the  pres- 
sure of  the  law  of  evolution  tends  to  guide  the  man 
to  precisely  those  which  best  suit  his  needs  at  the 
stage  at  which  he  happens  to  be. 

But  the  action  of  this  law  is  limited  by  that  other 
law  of  which  we  spoke,  the  law  of  cause  and  effect. 
The  man's  actions  in  the  past  may  not  have  been 
such  as  to  deserve  (if  we  may  put  it  so)  the  best 


106  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

possible  opportunities;  he  may  have  set  in  motion  in 
his  past  certain  forces  the  inevitable  result  of  which 
will  be  to  produce  limitations;  and  these  limitations 
may  operate  to  prevent  his  receiving  that  best  possi- 
ble of  opportunities,  and  so  as  the  result  of  his  own 
actions  in  the  past  he  may  have  to  put  up  with  the 
second-best.  So  we  may  say  that  the  action  of  the 
law  of  evolution,  which  if  left  to  itself  would  do  the 
very  best  possible  for  every  man,  is  restrained  by 
the  man's  own  previous  actions. 

An  important  feature  in  that  limitation — one  which 
may  act  most  powerfully  for  good  or  for  evil — is 
the  influence  of  the  group  of  egos  with  which  the 
man  has  made  definite  links  in  the  past — those  with 
whom  he  has  formed  strong  ties  of  love  or  hate,  of 
helping  or  of  injury — those  souls  whom  he  must 
meet  again  because  of  connections  made  with  them 
in  days  of  long  ago.  His  relation  with  them  is  a 
factor  which  must  be  taken  into  consideration  before 
it  can  be  determined  where  and  how  he  shall  be  re- 
born. 

The  will  of  the  Deity  is  man's  evolution.  The  ef- 
fort of  that  nature  which  is  an  expression  of  the 
Deity  is  to  give  the  man  whatever  is  most  suitable 
for  that  evolution;  but  this  is  conditioned  by  the 
man's  deserts  in  the  past  and  by  the  links  which  he 
has  already  formed.  It  may  be  assumed  that  a  man 
descending  into  incarnation  could  learn  the  lessons 
necessary  for  that  life  in  any  one  of  a  hundred  posi- 
tions. Prom  half  of  these  or  more  than  half  he  may 
be  debarred  by  the  consequences  of  some  of  his 
many  and  varied  actions  in  the  past.  Among  the 


EEINGAEJSTATION  107 

few  possibilities  which  remain  open  to  him,  the  choice 
of  one  possibility  in  particular  may  be  determined 
by  the  presence  in  that  family  or  in  that  neighbor- 
hood of  other  egos  upon  whom  he  has  a  claim  for 
services  rendered,  or  to  whom  he  in  his  turn  owes 
a  debt  of  love. 


CHAPTER    VIII 

THE  PURPOSE  OF  LIFE 

To  fulfil  our  duty  in  the  divine  scheme  we  must 
try  to  understand  not  only  that  scheme  as  a  whole, 
but  the  special  part  that  man  is  intended  to  play  in 
it.  The  divine  outbreathing  reached  its  deepest  im- 
mersion in  matter  in  the  mineral  kingdom,  but  it 
reaches  its  ultimate  point  of  differentiation  not  at 
the  lowest  level  of  materiality,  but  at  the  entrance 
into  the  human  kingdom  on  the  upward  arc  of  evo- 
lution. We  have  thus  to  realize  three  stages  in  the 
course  of  this  evolution: 

(a)  The  downward  arc  in  which  the  tendency  is 
towards  differentiation  and  also  towards  greater 
materiality.  In  this  stage  spirit  is  involving  itself 
in  matter,  in  order  that  it  may  learn  to  receive  im- 
pressions through  it. 

(6)  The  earlier  part  of  the  upward  arc,  in  which 
the  tendency  is  still  towards  greater  differentiation, 
but  at  the  same  time  towards  spiritualization  and  es- 
cape from  materiality.  In  this  stage  the  spirit  is 
learning  to  dominate  matter  and  to  see  it  as  an  ex- 
pression of  itself. 

(c)  The  later  part  of  the  upward  arc,  when  dif- 
ferentiation has  been  finally  accomplished,  and  the 
tendency  is  towards  unity  as  well  as  towards  greater 


THE  PURPOSE  OF  LIFE  109 

spirituality.  In  this  stage  the  spirit,  having  learnt 
perfectly  how  to  receive  impressions  through  matter 
and  how  to  express  itself  through  it,  and  having 
awakened  its  dormant  powers,  learns  to  use  these 
powers  rightly  in  the  service  of  the  Deity. 

The  object  of  the  whole  previous  evolution  has 
been  to  produce  the  ego  as  a  manifestation  of  the 
monad.  Then  the  ego  in  its  turn  evolves  by  putting 
itself  down  into  a  succession  of  personalities.  Men 
who  do  not  understand  this  look  upon  the  personality 
as  the  self,  and  consequently  live  for  it  alone,  and 
try  to  regulate  their  lives  for  what  appears  to  be  its 
temporary  advantage.  The  man  who  understands  re- 
alizes that  the  only  important  thing  is  the  life  of  the 
ego,  and  that  its  progress  is  the  object  for  which  the 
temporary  personality  must  be  used.  Therefore  when 
he  has  to  decide  between  two  possible  courses  he 
thinks  not,  as  the  ordinary  man  might:  " Which  will 
bring  the  greater  pleasure  and  profit  to  me  as  a  per- 
sonality?" but  "  Which  will  bring  greater  progress 
to  me  as  an  ego?"  Experience  soon  teaches  him 
that  nothing  can  ever  be  really  good  for  him,  or  for 
any  one,  which  is  not  good  for  all,  and  so  presently 
he  learns  to  forget  himself  altogether,  and  to  ask 
only  what  will  be  best  for  humanity  as  a  whole. 

Clearly  then  at  this  stage  of  evolution  whatever 
tends  to  unity,  whatever  tends  to  spirituality,  is  in 
accord  with  the  plan  of  the  Deity  for  us,  and  is 
therefore  right  for  us,  while  whatever  tends  to  sep- 
arateness  or  to  materiality  is  equally  certainly  wrong 
for  us.  There  are  thoughts  and  emotions  which  tend 
to  unity,  such  as  love,  sympathy,  reverence,  benevo- 


110        A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

lenee;  there  are  others  which  tend  to  disunion,  such 
as  hatred,  jealousy,  envy,  pride,  cruelty,  fear.  Ob- 
viously the  former  group  are  for  us  the  right,  the 
latter  group  are  for  us  the  wrong. 

In  all  these  thoughts  and  feelings  which  are  clearly 
wrong,  we  recognize  one  'dominant  note,  the  thought 
of  self;  while  in  all  those  which  are  clearly  right  we 
recognize  that  the  thought  is  turned  toward  others, 
and  that  the  personal  self  is  forgotten.  Wherefore  we 
see  that  selfishness  is  the  one  great  wrong,  and  that 
perfect  unselfishness  is  the  crown  of  all  virtue.  This 
gives  us  at  once  a  rule  of  life.  The  man  who  wishes 
intelligently  to  co-operate  with  the  Divine  Will  must 
lay  aside  all  thought  of  the  advantage  or  pleasure  of 
the  personal  self,  and  must  devote  himself  exclu- 
sively to  carrying  out  that  Will  by  working  for  the 
welfare  and  happiness  of  others. 

This  is  a  high  ideal,  and  difficult  of  attainment, 
because  there  lies  behind  us  such  a  long  history  of 
Selfishness.  Most  of  us  are  as  yet  far  from  the  purely 
altruistic  attitude;  how  are  we  to  go  to  work  to  at- 
tain it,  lacking  as  we  do  the  necessary  intensity  in 
so  many  of  the  good  qualities,  and  possessing  so 
many  which  are  undesirable? 

Here  comes  into  operation  the  great  law  of  cause 
and  effect  to  which  I  have  already  referred.  Just  as 
we  can  confidently  appeal  to  the  laws  of  nature  in 
the  physical  world,  so  may  we  also  appeal  to  these 
laws  of  the  higher  world.  If  we  find  evil  qualities 
within  us,  they  have  grown  up  by  slow  degrees 
through  ignorance  and  through  self-indulgence.  Now 
that  the  ignorance  is  dispelled  by  knowledge,  now 


THE  PURPOSE  OF  LIFE  111 

that  in  consequence  we  recognize  the  quality  as  an 
evil,  the  method  of  getting  rid  of  it  lies  obviously 
before  us. 

For  each  of  these  vices  there  is  a  contrary  virtue; 
if  we  find  one  of  them  rearing  its  head  within  us, 
let  us  immediately  determine  deliberately  to  develop 
within  ourselves  the  contrary  virtue.  If  a  man  re- 
alizes that  in  the  past  he  has  been  selfish,  that  means 
that  he  has  set  up  within  himself  the  habit  of  think- 
ing of  himself  first  and  pleasing  himself,  of  consult- 
ing his  own  convenience  or  his  pleasure  without  due 
thought  of  the  effect  upon  others;  let  him  set  to  work 
purposefully  to  form  the  exactly  opposite  habit,  to 
make  a  practice  before  doing  anything  of  thinking 
how  it  will  affect  all  those  around  him;  let  him  set 
himself  habitually  to  please  others,  even  though  it  be 
at  the  cost  of  trouble  or  privation  for  himself.  This 
also  in  time  will  become  a  habit,  and  by  developing 
it  he  will  have  killed  out  the  other. 

If  a  man  finds  himself  full  of  suspicion,  ready  al- 
ways to  assign  evil  motives  to  the  actions  of  those 
about  him,  let  him  set  himself  steadily  to  cultivate 
trust  in  his  fellows,  to  give  them  credit  always  for 
the  highest  possible  motives.  It  may  be  said  that  a 
man  who  does  this  will  lay  himself  open  to  be  de- 
ceived, and  that  in  many  cases  his  confidence  will  be 
misplaced.  That  is  a  small  matter;  it  is  far  better 
for  him  that  he  should  sometimes  be  deceived  as  a 
result  of  his  trust  in  his  fellows  than  that  he  should 
save  himself  from  such  deception  by  maintaining  a 
constant  attitude  of  suspicion.  Besides,  confidence 
begets  faithfulness.  A  man  who  is  trusted  will  gen- 


112  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

erally  prove  himself  worthy  of  the  trust,  whereas 
a  man  who  is  suspected  is  likely  presently  to  justify 
the  suspicion. 

If  a  man  finds  in  himself  the  tendency  towards 
avarice,  tet  him  go  out  of  his  way  to  be  especially 
generous;  if  he  finds  himself  irritable,  let  him  defi- 
nitely train  himself  in  calmness;  if  he  finds  himself 
devoured  by  curiosity,  let  him  deliberately  refuse 
again  and  again  to  gratify  that  curiosity;  if  he  is 
liable  to  fits  of  depression,  let  him  persistently  culti- 
vate cheerfulness,  even  under  the  most  adverse  cir- 
cumstances. 

In  every  case  the  existence  of  an  evil  quality  in 
the  personality  means  a  lack  of  the  corresponding 
good  quality  in  the  ego.  The  shortest  way  to  get  rid 
of  that  evil  and  to  prevent  its  reappearance  is  to 
fill  the  gap  in  the  ego,  and  the  good  quality  which 
is  thus  developed  will  show  itself  as  an  integral  part 
of  the  man's  character  through  all  his  future  lives. 
An  ego  cannot  be  evil,  but  he  can  be  imperfect.  The 
qualities  which  he  develops  cannot  be  other  than 
good  qualities,  and  when  they  are  well  defined  they 
show  themselves  in  each  of  all  his  numerous  person- 
alities, and  consequently  those  personalities  can  never 
be  guilty  of  the  vices  opposite  to  these  qualities;  but 
where  there  is  a  gap  in  the  ego,  where  there  is  a 
quality  undeveloped,  there  is  nothing  inherent  in  the 
personality  to  check  the  growth  of  the  opposite  vice  ; 
and  since  others  in  the  world  about  him  already  pos- 
sess that  vice,  and  man  is  an  imitative  animal,  it  is 
quite  probable  that  it  will  speedily  manifest  itself  in 
him.  This  vice,  however,  belongs  to  the  vehicles  only 


THE  PURPOSE  OF  LIFE  113 

and  not  to  the  man  inside.  In  these  vehicles  its  repe- 
tition may  set  up  a  momentum  which  is  hard  to  con- 
quer ;  but  if  the  ego  bestirs  himself  to  create  in  him- 
self the  opposite  virtue,  the  vice  is  cut  off  at  its  root, 
and  can  no  longer  exist — neither  in  this  life  nor  in 
all  the  lives  that  are  to  come. 

A  man  who  is  trying  to  evolve  these  qualities  in 
himself  will  find  certain  obstacles  in  his  way — ob- 
stacles which  he  must  learn  to  surmount.  One  of 
these  is  the  critical  spirit  of  the  age — the  disposition 
to  find  fault  with  a  thing,  to  belittle  everything,  to 
look  for  faults  in  everything  and  in  every  one.  The 
exact  opposite  of  this  is  what  is  needed  for  progress. 
He  who  wishes  to  move  rapidly  along  the  path  of 
evolution  must  learn  to  see  good  in  everything — to 
see  the  latent  Deity  in  everything  and  in  every  one. 
Only  so  can  he  help  those  other  people — only  so  can 
he  get  the  best  out  of  those  other  things. 

Another  obstacle  is  the  lack  of  perseverance.  We 
tend  in  these  days  to  be  impatient;  if  we  try  any 
plan  we  expect  immediate  results  from  it,  and  if  we 
do  not  get  them,  we  give  up  that  plan  and  try  some- 
thing else.  That  is  not  the  way  to  make  progress 
in  occultism.  The  effort  which  we  are  making  is  to 
compress  into  one  or  two  lives  the  evolution  which 
would  naturally  take  perhaps  a  hundred  lives.  That 
is  not  the  sort  of  undertaking  in  which  immediate  re- 
sults are  to  be  expected.  We  attempt  to  uproot  an 
evil  habit,  and  we  find  it  hard  work;  why?  Because 
we  have  indulged  in  that  practice  for,  perhaps, 
twenty  thousand  years;  one  cannot  shake  off  the 
custom  of  twenty  thousand  years  in  a  day  or  two. 


114  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

We  have  allowed  that  habit  to  gain  an  enormous 
momentum,  and  before  we  can  set  up  a  force  in  the 
opposite  direction  we  have  to  overcome  that  mo- 
mentum. That  cannot  be  done  in  a  moment,  but  it 
is  absolutely  certain  that  it  will  be  done  eventually, 
if  we  persevere,  because  the  momentum,  however 
strong  it  may  be,  is  a  finite  quality,  whereas  the 
power  that  we  can  bring  to  bear  against  it  is  the  in- 
finite power  of  the  human  will,  which  can  make  re- 
newed efforts  day  after  day,  year  after  year,  even 
life  after  life  if  necessary. 

Another  great  difficulty  in  our  way  is  the  lack  of 
clearness  in  our  thought.  People  in  the  West  are 
little  used  to  clear  thought  with  regard  to  religious 
matters.  Everything  is  vague  and  nebulous.  For 
occult  development  vagueness  and  nebulosity  will  not 
do.  Our  conceptions  must  be  clear-cut  and  our 
thought-images'  definite.  Other  necessary  character- 
istics are  calmness  and  cheerfulness ;  these  are  rare  in 
modern  life,  but  are  absolute  essentials  for  the  work 
which  we  are  here  undertaking. 

The  process  of  building  a  character  is  as  scientific 
as  that  of  developing  one's  muscles.  Many  a  man, 
finding  himself  with  certain  muscles  flabby  and  pow- 
erless takes  that  as  his  natural  condition,  and  re- 
gards their  weakness  as  a  kind  of  destiny  imposed 
upon  him;  but  anyone  who  understands  a  little  of 
the  human  body  is  aware  that  by  continued  exercise 
those  muscles  can  be  brought  into  a  state  of  health 
and  the  whole  body  eventually  put  in  order.  In  ex- 
actly the  same  way,  many  a  man  finds  himself  pos- 
sessed of  a  bad  temper  or  a  tendency  to  avarice  or 


THE  PURPOSE  OF  LIFE  115 

suspicion  or  self-indulgence,  and  when  in  conse- 
quence of  any  of  these  vices  he  commits  some  great 
mistake  or  does  some  great  harm  he  offers  it  as  an 
excuse  that  he  is  a  hasty-tempered  man,  or  that  he 
possesses  this  or  that  quality  by  nature — implying 
that  therefore  he  cannot  help  it. 

In  this  case  just  as  in  the  other  the  remedy  is  in 
his  own  hands.  Regular  exercise  of  the  right  kind 
will  develop  a  certain  muscle,  and  regular  mental  ex- 
ercise of  the  right  kind  will  develop  a  missing  quality 
in  a  man's  character.  The  ordinary  man  does  not 
realize  that  he  can  do  this,  and  even  if  he  sees  that 
he  can  do  it,  he  does  not  see  why  he  should,  for  it 
means  much  effort  and  much  self-repression.  He 
knows  of  no  adequate  motive  for  undertaking  a  task 
so  laborious  and  painful. 

The  motive  is  supplied  by  the  knowledge  of  the 
truth.  One  who  gains  an  intelligent  comprehension 
of  the  direction  of  'evolution  feels  it  not  only  his  in- 
terest but  his  privilege  and  his  delight  to  co-operate 
with  it.  One  who  wills  the  end  wills  also  the  means; 
in  order  to  be  able  to  do  good  work  for  the  world 
he  must  develop  within  himself  the  necessary  strength 
and  the  nec'essary  qualities.  Therefore  he  who  wishes 
to  reform  the  world  must  first  of  all  reform  himself. 
He  must  learn  to  give  up  altogether  the  attitude  of 
insisting  upon  rights,  and  must  devote  himself  ut- 
terly to  the  most  earnest  performance  of  his  duties. 
He  must  learn  to  regard  every  connection  with  his 
fellowman  as  an  opportunity  to  help  that  fellow-man, 
or  in  some  way  to  do  him  good. 

One  who  studies  these  subjects  intelligently  cannot 


116  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

but  realize  the  tremendous  power  of  thought,  and  the 
necessity  for  its  efficient  control.  All  action  springs 
from  thought,  for  feven  when  it  is  done  (as  we  say) 
without  thought,  it  is  the  instinctive  expression  of 
the  thoughts,  desires  and  feelings  which  the  man  has 
allowed  to  grow  luxuriantly  within  himself  in  earlier 
days. 

The  wise  man,  therefore,  will  watch  his  thought 
with  the  greatest  of  care,  for  in  it  he  possesses  a 
powerful  instrument,  for  the  right  use  of  which  he  is 
responsible.  It  is  his  duty  to  govern  his  thought,  lest 
it  should  be  allowed  to  run  riot  and  to  do  evil  to 
himself  and  to  others;  it  is  his  duty  also  to  develop 
his  thought-power,  because  by  means  of  it  a  vast 
amount  of  actual  and  active  good  can  be  done.  Thus 
controlling  his  thought  and  his  action,  thus  eliminat- 
ing from  himself  all  evil  and  unfolding  in  himself 
all  good  qualities,  the  man  presently  raises  himself 
far  above  the  level  of  his  fellows,  and  stands  out 
conspicuously  among  them  as  one  who  is  working 
on  the  side  of  good  as  against  evil,  of  evolution  as 
against  stagnation. 

Thte  Members  of  the  great  Hierarchy  in  whose 
hands  is  the  evolution  of  the  world  are  watching  al- 
ways for  such  men  in  order  that  They  may  train 
them  to  help  in  the  great  work.  Such  a  man  inevit- 
ably attracts  Their  attention,  and  They  begin  to  use 
him  as  an  instrument  in  Their  work.  If  he  proves 
himself  a  good  and  efficient  instrument,  presently 
They  will  offer  him  definite  training  as  an  appren- 
tice, that  by  helping  Them  in  the  world-business 
which  They  have  to  do  lie  may  some  day  become  even 


THE  PURPOSE  OF  LITE  117 

as  They  are,  and  join  the  mighty  Brotherhood  to 
which  They  belong. 

But  for  an  honor  so  great  as  this  mere  ordinary 
goodness  will  not  suffice.  True,  a  man  must  be  good 
first  of  all,  or  it  would  be  hopeless  to  think  of  using 
him,  but  in  addition  to  being  good  he  must  toe  wise 
and  strong.  What  is  needed  is  not  merely  a  good 
man,  but  a  great  spiritual  power.  Not  only  must 
the  candidate  have  cast  aside  all  ordinary  weaknesses 
but  he  must  have  acquired  strong  positive  qualities 
before  he  can  offer  himself  to  Them  with  any  hope 
that  he  will  be  accepted.  He  must  live  no  longer  as 
a  blundering  and  selfish  personality,  but  as  an  in- 
telligent ego  who  comprehends  the  part  which  he  has 
to  play  in  the  great  scheme  of  the  universe.  He 
must  have  forgotten  himself  utterly;  he  must  have 
resigned  all  thought  of  worldly  profit  or  pleasure 
or  advancement ;  he  must  be  willing  to  sacrifice  every- 
thing, and  himself  first  of  all,  for  the  sake  of  the 
work  that  has  to  be  done.  He  may  be  in  the  world, 
but  he  must  not  be  of  the  world.  He  must  be  care- 
less utterly  of 'its  opinion.  For  the  sake  of  helping  man 
he  must  make  himself  something  more  than  man. 
Kadiant,  rejoicing,  strong,  hfc  must  live  but  for  the 
sake  of  others  and  to  be  an  expression  of  the  love 
of  God  in  the  world.  A  high  ideal,  yet  not  too  high  ; 
possible,  because  there  are  men  who  have  achieved  it. 

When  a  man  has  succeeded  in  unfolding  his  latent 
possibilities  so  far  that  he  attracts  the  attention  of 
the  Masters  of  the  Wisdom,  one  of  Them  will  prob- 
ably receive  him  as  an  apprentice  upon  probation. 
The  period  of  probation  is  usually  seven  years,  but 


118  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

may  be  either  shortened  or  lengthened  at  the  discre- 
tion of  the  Master.  At  the  end  of  that  time,  if  his 
work  has  been  satisfactory,  he  becomes  what  is  com- 
monly called  the  accepted  pupil.  This  brings  him 
into  close  relations  with  his  Master,  so  that  the  vi- 
brations of  the  latter  constantly  play  upon  him,  and 
he  gradually  learns  to  look  at  everything  as  the 
Master  looks  at  it.  After  yet  another  interval,  if 
he  proves  himself  entirely  worthy,  he  may  be  drawn 
into  a  still  closer  relationship,  when  he  is  called  the 
son  of  the  Master. 

These  three  stages  mark  his  relationship  to  his 
own  Master  only,  not  to  the  Brotherhood  as  a  whole. 
The  Brotherhood  admits  a  man  to  its  ranks  only 
when  he  has  fitted  himself  to  pass  the  first  of  the 
great  Initiations. 

This  entry  into  the  Brotherhood  of  Those  who 
rule  the  world  may  be  thought  of  as  the  third  of  the 
great  critical  points  in  man's  evolution.  The  first 
of  these  is  when  he  becomes  man — when  he  individu- 
alizes out  of  the  animal  kingdom  and  obtains  a 
causal  body.  The  second  is  what  is  called  by  the 
Christian  "conversion,"  by  the  Hindu  "the  acquire- 
ment of  discrimination/ *  and  by  the  Buddhist  "the 
opening  of  the  doors  of  the  mind."  That  is  the 
point  at  which  he  realizes  the  great  facts  of  life,  and 
turns  away  from  the  pursuit  of  selfish  ends  in  order 
to  move  intentionally  along  with  the  great  current 
of  evolution  in  obedience  to  the  divine  will.  The 
third  point  is  the  most  important  of  all,  for  the 
Initiation  which  admits  him  to  the  ranks  of  the 
Brotherhood  also  insures  him  against  the  possibility 


THE  PUKPOSE  OF  LIFE  119 

of  failure  to  fulfil  the  divine  purpose  in  the  time 
appointed  for  it.  Hence  those  who  have  reached  this 
point  are  called  in  the  Christian  system  the  "  elect, " 
the  " saved "  or  the  "safe,"  and  in  the  Buddhist 
scheme  "those  who  have  entered  on  the  stream/' 
For  those  who  have  reached  this  point  have  made 
themselves  absolutely  certain  of  reaching  a  further 
point  also — that  of  Adeptship,  at  which  they  pass 
into  a  type  of  evolution  which  is  definitely  super- 
human. 

The  man  who  has  become  an  Adept  has  fulfilled 
the  divine  will  so  far  as  this  chain  of  worlds  is  con- 
cerned. He  has  reached,  even  already  at  the  mid- 
most point  of  the  aeon  of  evolution,  the  stage  pre- 
scribed for  man's  attainment  at  the  end  of  it.  There- 
fore he  is  at  liberty  to  spend  the  remainder  of  that 
time  either  in  helping  his  fellow-men  or  in  even  more 
splendid  work  in  connection  with  other  and  higher 
evolutions.  He  who  has  not  yet  been  initiated  is 
still  in  danger  of  being  left  behind  by  our  present 
wave  of  evolution,  and  dropping  into  the  next  one — 
the  "seonian  condemnation "  of  which  the  Christ 
spoke,  which  has  been  mistranslated  "eternal  dam- 
nation." It  is  from  this  fate  of  possible  seonian  fail- 
ure— that  is,  failure  for  this  age,  or  dispensation,  or 
life-wave — that  the  man  who  attains  Initiation  is 
"safe."  He  has  "entered  upon  the  stream"  which 
now  must  bear  him  on  to  Adeptship  in  this  present 
age,  though  it  is  still  possible  for  him  by  his  actions 
to  hasten  or  delay  his  progress  along  the  Path  which 
he  is  treading. 

That  first  Initiation  corresponds  to  the  matricula- 


120  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

tion  which  admits  a  man  to  a  University,  and  the  at- 
tainment of  Adeptship  to  the  taking  of  a  degree  at 
the  end  of  a  course.  Continirng  the  simile,  there 
are  three  intermediate  examinations,  which  are  usu- 
ally spoken  of  as  the  second,  third  and  fourth  Initia- 
tions, Adfcptship  being  the  fifth.  A  general  idea  of 
the  line  of  this  higher  evolution  may  be  obtained 
by  studying  the  list  of  what  are  called  in  Buddhist 
books  "the  fetters"  which  must  be  cast  off — the 
qualities  of  which  a  man  must  rid  himself  as  he 
treads  this  Path.  These  are :  the  delusion  of  separate- 
ness;  doubt  or  uncertainty;  superstition;  attachment 
to  enjoyment;  the  possibility  of  hatred;  desire  for 
life,  either  in  this  or  the  higher  worlds;  pride;  agi- 
tation or  irritability;  and  ignorance.  The  man  who 
reaches  the  Adept  level  has  exhausted  all  the  possi- 
bilities of  moral  development,  and  so  the  future  evo- 
lution which  still  lies  before  him  can  only  mean  still 
wider  knowledge  and  still  more  wonderful  spiritual 
powers. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE  PLANETARY  CHAINS 

The  scheme  of  evolution  of  which  our  Earth  forms 
a  part  is  not  the  only  one  in  our  solar  system,  for 
ten  separate  chains  of  globes  exist  in  that  system 
which  are  all  of  them  theatres  of  somewhat  similar 
progress.  Each  of  these  schemes  of  evolution  is 
taking  place  upon  a  chain  of  globes,  and  in  the 
course  of  each  scheme  its  chain  of  globes  goes 
through  seven  incarnations.  The  plan,  alike  of  each 
scheme  as  a  whole  and  of  the  successive  incarnations 
of  its  chain  of  globes,  is  to  dip  step  by  step  more 
deeply  into  matter,  and  then  to  rise  step  by  step 
out  of  it  again. 

Each  chain  consists  of  seven  globes,  and  both 
globes  and  chains  observe  the  rule  of  descending 
into  matter  and  then  rising  out  of  it  again.  In  order 
to  make  this  comprehensible  let  us  take  as  an  ex- 
ample the  chain  to  which  our  Earth  belongs.  At  the 
present  time  it  is  in  its  fourth  or  most  material  in- 
carnation, and  therefore  three  of  its  globes  belong  to 
the  physical  world,  two  to  the  astral  world  and  two 
to  the  lower  part  of  the  mental  world.  The  wave  of 
divine  Life  passes  in  succession  from  globe  to  globe 
of  this  chain,  beginning  with  one  of  the  highest,  de- 
scending gradually  to  the  lowest  and  then  climbing 
again  to  the  same  level  as  that  at  which  it  began. 

Let   us    for    convenience    of    reference    label    the 


122        A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

seven  globes  by  the  earlier  letters  of  the  alphabet, 
and  number  the  incarnations  in  order.  Thus,  as  this 
is  the  fourth  incarnation  of  our  chain,  the  first 
globe  in  this  incarnation  will  be  4A,  the  second  4B, 
the  third  4o,  the  fourth  (which  is  our  Earth)  4o, 
and  so  on. 

These  globes  are  not  all  composed  of  physical 
matter.  4A  contains  no  matter  lower  than  that  of 
the  mental  world;  it  has  its  counterpart  in  all  the 
worlds  higher  than  that,  but  nothing  below  it.  4s 
exists  in  the  astral  world ;  but  4c  is  a  physical  globe, 
visible  to  our  telescopes,  and  is  in  fact  the  planet 
which  we  know  as  Mars.  Globe  4o  is  our  own  Earth, 
on  which  the  life-wave  of  the  chain  is  at  present  in 
action.  Globe  4E  is  the  planet  which  we  call  Mer- 
cury— also  in  the  physical  world.  Globe  4p  is  in  the 
astral  world,  corresponding  on  the  ascending  arc  to 
globe  4B  in  the  descent;  while  globe  4a  corresponds 
to  globe  4A  in  having  its  lowest  manifestation  in  the 
lower  part  of  the  mental  world.  Thus  it  will  be  seen 
that  we  have  a  scheme  of  globes  starting  in  the  lower 
mental  world,  dipping  through  the  astral  into  the 
physical  and  then  rising  into  the  lower  mental 
through  the  astral  again. 

Just  as  the  succession  of  the  globes  in  a  chain  con- 
stitutes a  descent  into  matter  and  an  ascent  from  it 
again,  so  do  the  successive  incarnations  of  a  chain. 
We  have  described  the  condition  of  affairs  in  the 
fourth  incarnation ;  looking  back  at  the  third,  we  find 
that  that  commences  not  on  the  lower  level  of  the 
mental  world  but  on  the  higher.  Globes  SA  and  3a, 
then,  are  both  of  higher  mental  matter,  while  globes 


THE  FLANETABY  CHAINS  123 

SB  and  3p  are  at  the  lower  mental  level.  Globes  3c 
and  SB  belong  to  the  astral  world,  and  only  globe  3D 
is  visible  in  the  physical  world.  Although  this  third 
incarnation  of  our  chain  is  long  past,  the  corpse  of 
this  physical  globe  SD  is  still  visible  to  us  in  the 
shape  of  that  dead  planet  the  Moon,  whence  that  third 
incarnation  is  usually  called  the  lunar  chain. 

The  fifth  incarnation  of  our  chain,  which  still  lies 
very  far  in  the  future,  will  correspond  to  the  third. 
In  that,  globes  5A  and  5o  will  be  built  of  higher  men- 
tal matter,  globes  5s  and  5F  of  lower  mental,  globes 
5c  and  5E  of  astral  matter,  and  only  globe  5o  will  be 
in  the  physical  world.  This  planet  5D  is  of  course 
not  yet  in  existence. 

The  other  incarnations  of  the  chain  follow  the 
same  general  rule  of  gradually  decreasing  materi- 
ality; 2A,  2a,  GA  and  6a  are  all  in  the  intuitional 
world;  2s,  2p,  GB  and  6F  are  all  in  the  higher  part 
of  the  mental  world;  2c,  2E,  6c  and  6E  are  in  the 
lower  part  of  the  mental  world ;  2o  and  6D  are  in  the 
astral  world.  In  the  same  way  IA,  la,  ?A  and  7o  be- 
long to  the  spiritual  world ;  IB,  IP,  TB  and  7p  are  in 
the  intuitional  world;  lc,  IE,  7c  and  TE  are  in  the 
higher  part  of  the  mental  world ;  ID  and  TD  are  in  the 
lower  part  of  the  mental  world. 

Thus  it  will  be  seen  that  not  only  does  the  life- 
wave  in  passing  through  one  chain  of  globes  dip 
down  into  matter  and  rise  out  of  it  again,  but  the 
chain  itself  in  its  successive  incarnations  does  ex- 
actly the  same  thing. 

There  are  ten  schemes  of  evolution  at  present  ex- 
isting in  our  solar  system,  but  only  seven  of  them 


124        A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

are  at  the  stage  where  they  have  planets  in  the 
physical  world.  These  are:  (1)  that  of  an  unrecog- 
nized planet  Vulcan,  very  near  the  sun,  which  is  in 
its  third  incarnation,  and  so  has  only  that  one  visible 
globe;  (2)  that  of  Venus,  which  is  in  its  fifth  incar- 
nation, and  also  therefore  has  only  one  visible  globe; 
(3)  that  of  the  Earth,  Mars  and  Mercury,  which  has 
three  visible  planets  because  it  is  in  its  fourth  incar- 
nation; (4)  that  of  Jupiter,  (5)  that  of  Saturn,  (6) 
that  of  Uranus,  all  in  their  third  incarnations;  and 
(7)  that  of  Neptune  and  the  two  unnamed  planets 
beyond  his  orbit,  which  is  in  its  fourth  incarnation, 
and  therefore  has  three  physical  planets,  as  we  have. 
In  each  incarnation  of  a  chain  (commonly  called 
a  chain-period)  the  wave  of  divine  Life  moves  seven 
times  round  the  chain  of  seven  planets,  and  each 
such  movement  is  spoken  of  as  a  round.  The  time 
that  the  life-wave  stays  upon  each  planet  is  known 
as  a  world-period,  and  in  the  course  of  a  world- 
period  there  are  seven  great  root-races.  As  has  been 
previously  explained,  these  are  subdivided  into  sub- 
races,  and  those  again  into  branch-races.  For  con- 
venience of  reference  we  may  state  this  in  tabular 
form: 

7    Branch-Races  make     1    Sub-Race 

7    Sub-Races  1    Root-Race 

7    Root-Races  1    World-Period 

7    World-Periods  1    Round 

7    Rounds  1    Chain-Period 

7    Chain-Periods  1     Scheme  of 

Evolution 
10  Schemes  of  Evolution        "     Our  Solar  System 


THE  PLANETARY  CHAINS  125 

It  is  clear  that  the  fourth  root-race  of  the  fourth 
globe  of  the  fourth  round  of  a  fourth  chain-period 
would  be  the  central  point  of  a  whole  scheme  of  evo- 
lution, and  we  find  ourselves  at  the  present  moment 
only  a  little  past  that  point.  The  Aryan  race,  to 
which  we  belong,  is  the  fifth  root-race  of  the  fourth 
globe,  so  that  the  actual  middle  point  fell  in  the 
time  of  the  last  great  root-race,  the  Atlantean.  Con- 
sequently the  human  race  as  a  whole  is  very  little 
more  than  half-way  through  its  evolution,  and  those 
few  souls  who  are  already  nearing  Adeptship,  which 
is  the  end  and  crown  of  this  evolution,  are  very  far 
in  advance  of  their  fellows. 

How  do  they  come  to  be  so  far  in  advance  ?  Partly 
and  in  some  cases  because  they  have  worked  harder, 
but  usually  because  they  are  older  egos — because 
they  were  individualized  out  of  the  animal  kingdom 
at  an  earlier  date,  and  so  have  had  more  time  for  the 
human  part  of  their  evolution. 

Any  given  wave  of  life  sent  forth  from  the  Deity 
usually  spends  a  chain-period  in  each  of  the  great 
kingdoms  of  nature.  That  which  in  our  first  chain 
was  ensouling  the  first  elemental  kingdom  must  have 
ensouled  the  second  of  those  kingdoms  in  the  second 
chain,  the  third  of  them  in  the  Moon-chain,  and  is 
now  in  the  mineral  kingdom  in  the  fourth  chain.  In 
the  future  fifth  chain  it  will  ensoul  the  vegetable 
kingdom,  in  the  sixth  the  animal,  and  in  the  seventh 
it  will  attain  humanity. 

From  this  it  follows  that  we  ourselves  represented 
the  mineral  kingdom  on  the  first  chain,  the  vegetable 
on  the  second,  and  the  animal  on  the  lunar  chain. 


126  A  TEXTBOOK  OP  THEOSOPHY 

There  some  of  us  attained  our  individualization,  and 
so  we  were  enabled  to  enter  this  Earth-chain  as  men. 
Others  who  were  a  little  more  backward  did  not  suc- 
ceed in  attaining  it,  and  so  had  to  be  born  into  this 
chain  as  animals  for  a  while  before  they  could  reach 
humanity. 

Not  all  of  mankind,  however^  entered  this  chain 
together.  When  the  lunar  chain  came  to  its  end  the 
humanity  upon  it  stood  at  various  levels.  Not  Adept- 
ship,  but  what  is  now  for  us  the  fourth  step  on  the 
Path,  was  the  goal  appointed  for  that  chain.  Those 
who  had  attained  it  (commonly  called  in  Theosophi- 
cal  literature  the  Lords  of  the  Moon)  had,  as  is 
usual,  seven  choices  before  them  as  to  the  way  in 
which  they  would  serve.  Only  one  of  those  choices 
brought  them,  or  rather  a  few  of  them,  over  into  this 
Earth-chain,  to  act  as  guides  and  teachers  to  the 
earlier  races.  A  considerable  proportion — a  vast  pro- 
portion, indeed — of  the  Moon-men  had  not  attained 
that  level,  and  consequently  had  to  reappear  in  this 
Earth-chain  as  humanity.  Besides  this,  a  great  mass 
of  the  animal  kingdom  of  the  Moon-chain  was  surg- 
ing up  to  the  level  of  individualization,  and  some  of 
its  members  had  already  reached  it,  while  many 
others  had  not.  These  latter  needed  further  animal 
incarnations  upon  the  Earth-chain,  and  for  the  mo- 
ment may  be  put  aside. 

There  were  many  classes  even  among  the  humanity, 
and  the  manner  in  which  these  distributed  them- 
selves over  the  Earth-chain  needs  some  explanation. 
It  is  the  general  rule  that  those  who  have  attained 
the  highest  possible  in  any  chain,  on  any  globe,  in 


THE  PLANETABY  CHAINS  127 

any  root-race,  are  not  born  into  the  beginning  of  the 
next  chain,  globe  or  race,  respectively.  The  earlier 
stages  are  always  for  the  backward  entities,  and  only 
when  they  have  already  passed  through  a  good  deal 
of  evolution  and  are  beginning  to  approach  the  level 
of  those  others  who  had  done  better,  do  -the  latter 
descend  into  incarnation  and  join  them  once  more. 
That  is  to  say,  almost  the  earlier  half  of  any  period 
of  evolution,  whether  it  be  a  race,  a  globe  or  a 
chain,  seems  to  be  devoted  to  bringing  the  backward 
people  up  to  nearly  the  level  of  those  who  have  got 
on  better;  then  these  latter  also  (who,  in  the  mean- 
time, have  been  resting  in  great  enjoyment  in  the 
mental  world)  descend  into  incarnation  along  with 
the  others,  and  they  press  on  together  until  the 
end  of  the  period. 

Thus  the  first  of  the  egos  from  the  Moon  who  en- 
tered the  Earth-chain  were  by  no  means  the  most  ad- 
vanced. Indeed  they  may  be  described  as  the  least 
advanced  of  those  who  had  succeeded  in  attaining 
humanity — the  animal-men.  Coming  as  they  did 
into  a  chain  of  new  globes,  freshly  aggregated,  they 
had  to  establish  the  forms  in  all  the  different  king- 
doms of  nature.  This  needs  to  be  done  at  the  begin- 
ning of  the  first  round  in  a  new  chain,  but  never 
after  that;  for  though  the  life-wave  is  centered  only 
upon  one  of  the  seven  globes  of  a  chain  at  any  given 
time,  yet  life  has  not  entirely  departed  from  the 
other  globes.  At  the  present  moment,  for  example, 
the  life-wave  of  our  chain  is  centered  in  this  Earth, 
but  on  the  other  two  physical  globes  of  our  chain, 
Mars  and  Mercury,  life  still  exists.  There  is  still  a 


128  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

population,  human,  animal  and  vegetable,  and  con- 
sequently when  the  life-wave  goes  round  again  to 
either  of  those  planets  there  will  be  no  necessity  for 
the  creation  of  new  forms.  The  old  types  are  already 
there,  and  all  that  will  happen  will  be  a  sudden 
marvellous  fecundity,  so  that  the  various  kingdoms 
will  quickly  increase  and  multiply,  and  make  a  rap- 
idly increasing  population  instead  of  a  stationary 
one. 

It  was  then  the  animal-men,  the  lowest  class  of 
human  beings  of  the  Moon-chain,  who  established  the 
forms  in  the  first  round  of  the  Earth-chain.  Pressing 
closely  after  them  were  the  highest  of  the  lunar  ani- 
mal kingdom,  who  were  soon  ready  to  occupy  the 
forms  which  had  just  been  made.  In  the  second 
journey  round  the  seven  globes  of  the  Earth-chain, 
the  animal-men  who  had  been  the  most  backward  of 
the  lunar  humanity  were  leaders  of  this  terrene  hu- 
manity, the  highest  of  the  moon-animals  making  its 
less  developed  grades.  The  same  thing  went  on  in 
the  third  round  of  the  Earth-chain,  more  and  more 
of  the  lunar  animals  attaining  individualization  and 
joining  the  human  ranks,  until  in  the  middle  of 
that  round  on  this  very  globe  D  which  we  call  the 
Earth,  a  higher  class  of  human  beings — the  Second 
Order  of  moon-men — descended  into  incarnation  and 
at  once  took  the  lead. 

When  we  come  to  the  fourth,  our  present  round, 
we  find  the  First  Order  of  the  moon-men  pouring 
in  upon  us — all  the  highest  and  the  best  of  the  lunar 
humanity  who  had  only  just  fallen  short  of  success. 
Some  of  those  who  had  already  even  on  the  Moon  en-  ^^j 


THE  PLANETAEY  CHAINS  129 

tered  upon  the  Path  soon  attained  its  end,  became 
Adepts  and  passed  away  from  the  Earth.  Some 
few  others  who  had  not  been  quite  so  far  advanced 
have  attained  Adeptship  only  comparatively  recently 
— that  is,  within  the  last  few  thousand  years,  and 
these  are  the  Adepts  of  the  present  day.  We,  who 
find  ourselves  in  the  higher  races  of  humanity  now, 
were  several  stages  behind  Them,  but  the  oppor- 
tunity lies  before  us  of  following  in  Their  steps  if 
we  will. 

The  evolution  of  which  we  have  been  speaking  is 
that  of  the  ego  himself,  of  what  might  be  called  the 
soul  of  man;  but  at  the  same  time  there  has  been 
also  an  evolution  of  the  body.  The  forms  built  in 
the  first  round  were  very  different  from  any  of 
which  we  know  anything  now.  Properly  speaking, 
those  which  were  made  on  our  physical  earth  can 
scarcely  be  called  forms  at  all,  for  they  were  con- 
structed of  etheric  matter  only,  and  resembled  vague, 
drifting  and  almost  shapeless  clouds.  In  the  second 
round  they  were  definitely  physical,  but  still  shape- 
less and  light  enough  to  float  about  in  currents  of 
wind. 

Only  in  the  third  round  did  they  begin  to  bear 
any  kind  of  resemblance  to  man  as  we  know  him  to- 
day. The  very  methods  of  reproduction  of  those 
primitive  forms  differed  from  those  of  humanity  to- 
day, and  far  more  resembled  those  which  we  now  find 
only  in  very  much  lower  types  of  life.  Man  in  those 
early  days  was  androgynous,  and  a  definite  separa- 
tion into  sexes  took  place  only  about  the  middle  of 
the  third  round.  From  that  time  onward  until  now 


130  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

the  shape  of  man  has  been  steadily  evolving  along 
definitely  human  lines,  becoming  smaller  and  more 
compact  than  it  was,  learning  to  stand  upright  in- 
stead of  stooping  and  crawling,  and  generally  dif- 
ferentiating itself  from  the  animal  forms  out  of 
which  it  had  been  evolved.  " ',  3 

One  curious  break  in  the  regularity  of  this  evo- 
lution deserves  mention.  On  this  globe,  in  this  fourth 
round,  there  was  a  departure  from  the  straightfor- 
ward scheme  of  evolution.  This  being  the  middle 
globe  of  a  middle  round,  the  midmost  point  of  evo- 
lution upon  it  marked  the  last  moment  at  which  it 
was  possible  for  members  of  what  had  been  the  lunar 
animal  kingdom  to  attain  individualization.  Conse- 
quently a  sort  of  strong  effort  was  made — a  special 
scheme  was  arranged  to  give  a  final  chance  to  as 
many  as  possible.  The  conditions  of  the  first  and  sec- 
ond rounds  were  specially  reproduced  in  place  of  the 
first  and  second  races — conditions  of  which  in  the 
earlier  rounds  these  backward  egos  had  not  been  able 
fully  to  take  advantage.  Now,  with  the  additional 
evolution  which  they  had  undergone  during  the 
third  round,  some  of  them  were  able  to  take  such  ad- 
vantage, and  so  they  rushed  in  at  the  very  last  mo- 
ment before  the  do.or  was  shut,  and  became  just  hu- 
man. Naturally  they  will  not  reach  any  high  level 
of  human  development,  but  at  least  when  they  try 
again  in  some  future  chain  it  will  be  some  advan- 
tage to  them  to  have  had  even  this  slight  experience 
of  human  life. 

Our  terrestrial  evolution  received  a  most  valuable 
stimulus  from  the  assistance  given  to  us  by  our  sister 


THE  PLANETARY  CHAINS  131 

globe,  Venus.  Venus  is  at  present  in  the  fifth  in- 
carnation of  its  chain,  and  in  the  seventh  round  of 
that  incarnation,  so  that  its  inhabitants  are  a  whole 
chain  and  a  half  in  front  of  us  in  evolution.  Since, 
therefore,  its  people  are  so  much  more  developed 
than  ours,  it  was  thought  desirable  that  certain 
Adepts  from  the  Venus  evolution  should  be  transfer- 
red to  our  Earth  in  order  to  assist  in  the  specially 
busy  time  just  before  the  closing  of  the  door,  in  the 
middle  of  the  fourth 'root-race. 

These  august  Beings  have  been  called  the  Lords  of 
the  Flame  and  the  Children  of  the  Fire-mist,  and 
They  have  produced  a  wonderful  effect  upon  our 
evolution.  The  intellect  of  which  we  are  so  proud 
is  almost  entirely  due  to  Their  presence,  for  in  the 
natural  course  of  Events  the  next  round,  the  fifth, 
should  be  that  of  intellectual  advancement,  and  in 
this  our  present  fourth  round  we  should  be  devoting 
ourselves  chiefly  to  the  cultivation  of  the  emotions. 
We  are  therefore  in  reality  a  long  way  in  advance 
of  the  programme  marked  out  for  us ;  and  such  ad- 
vance is  entirely  due  to  the  assistance  given  by  these 
great  Lords  of  the  Flame.  Most  of  Them  stayed 
with  us  only  through  that ,  critical  period  of  our  his- 
tory; a  few  still  remain  to  hold  the  highest  offices 
of  the  Great  White  Brotherhood  until  the  time  when 
men  of  our  own  evolution  shall  have  risen  to  such  a 
height  as  to  be  capable  of  relieving  their  august 
visitors. 

The  evolution  lying  before  us  is  both  of  the  life 
and  of  the  form;  for  in  future  rounds,  while  the 
egos  will  be  steadily  growing  in  power,  wisdom  and 


132  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

love,  the  physical  forms  also  will  be  more  beautiful 
and  more  perfect  than  they  have  ever  yet  been.  We 
havB  in  this  world  at  the  present  time  men  at  widely 
differing  stages  of  evolution,  and  it  is  clear  that 
there  are  vast  hosts  of  savages  who  are  far  behind 
the  great  civilized  races  of  the  world — so  far  behind 
that  it  is  quite  impossible  that  they  can  overtake 
them.  Later  on  in  the  course  of  our  evolution  a 
point  will  be  reached  at  which  it  is  no  longer  possi- 
ble for  those  undeveloped  souls  to  advance  side  by 
side  with  the  others,  so  that  it  will  be  necessary  that 
a  division  should  be  made. 

The  proceeding  is  exactly  analogous  to  the  sorting 
out  by  a  schoolmaster  of  the  boys  in  his  class.  Dur- 
ing the  school  year  he  has  to  prepare  his  boys  for  a 
certain  examination,  and  by  perhaps  the  middle  of 
that  school  year  he  knows  quite  well  which  of  them 
will  pass  it.  If  he  should  have  in  his  class  some  who 
are  hopelessly  behind  the  rest,  he  might  reasonably 
say  to  them  when  the  middle  period  was  reached : 

"It  is  quite  useless  for  you  to  continue  with  your 
fellows,  for  the  more  difficult  lessons  which  I  shall 
now  have  to  give  will  be  entirely  unintelligible  to 
you.  It  is  impossible  that  you  can  learn  enough  in 
the  time  to  pass  the  examination,  so  that  the  effort 
would  only  be  a  useless  strain  for  you,  and  mean- 
time you  would  be  a  hindrance  to  the  rest  of  the 
class.  It  is  therefore  far  better  for  you  to  give  up 
striving  after  the  impossible,  and  to  take  up  again 
the  work  of  the  lower  class  which  you  did  not  do 
perfectly,  and  then  to  offer  yourself  for  this  ex- 


THE  PLANETARY  CHAINS  133 

animation  along  with  next  year's  class,  for  what  is 
now  impossible  for  you  will  then  be  easy." 

This  is  in  effect  exactly  what  is  said  at  a  certain 
stage  in  our  future  evolution,  to  the  most  backward 
egos.  They  drop  out  of  this  year's  class  and  come 
on  along  with  the  next  one.  This  is  the  *  Ionian  con- 
demnation" to  which  reference  was  made  a  little 
while  ago.  It  is  computed  that  about  two-fifths  of 
humanity  will  drop  out  of  tbe  class  in  this  way, 
leaving  the  remaining  three-fifths  to  go  on  with  far 
greater  rapidity  to  the  glorious  destinies  which  lie 
before  them. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  RESULT  OF  THEOSOPHICAL  STUDY 

"Members  of  the  Theosophical  Society  study  these 
truths  and  Theosophists  endeavor  to  live  them." 
What  manner  of  man  then  is  the  true  Theosophist  in 
consequence  of  his  knowledge?  What  is  the  result 
in  his  daily  life  of  all  this  study? 

Finding  that  there  is  a  Supreme  Power  who  is 
directing  the  course  of  evolution,  and  that  He  is  all- 
wise  and  all-loving,  the  Theosophist  sees  that  every- 
thing which  exists  within  this  scheme  must  be  in- 
tended to  further  its  progress.  He  realizes  that  the 
scripture  which  tells  us  that  all  things  are  working 
together  for  good,  is  not  indulging  in  a  flight  of 
poetic  fancy  or  voicing  a  pious  hope,  but  stating  a 
scientific  fact.  The  final  attainment  of  unspeakable 
glory  is  an  absolute  certainty  for  every  son.  of  man, 
whatever  may  be  his  present  condition;  but  that  is 
by  no  means  all.  Here  and  at  this  present  moment 
he  is  on  his  way  towards  the  glory;  and  all  the  cir- 
cumstances surrounding  him  are  intended  to  help 
and  not  to  hinder  him,  if  only  they  are  rightly  un- 
derstood. It  is  sadly  true  that  in  the  world  there 
is  much  of  evil  and  of  sorrow  and  of  suffering;  yet 
from  the  higher  point  of  view  the  Theosophist  sees 
that,  terrible  though  this  be,  it  is  only  tempo- 
rary and  superficial,  and  is  all  being  utilized  as  a 
factor  in  the  progress. 


THE  EESULT  OF  THEOSOPHICAL  STUDY         135 

When  in  the  days  of  his  ignorance  he  looked  at  it 
from  its  own  level  it  was  almost  impossible  to  see 
this;  while  he  looked  from  beneath  at  the  under  side 
of  life,  with  his  eyes  fixed  all  the  time  upon  some 
apparent  evil,  he  could  never  gain  a  true  grasp  of 
its  meaning.  Now  he  raises  himself  above  it  to  the 
higher  levels  of  thought  and  consciousness,  and  looks 
down  upon  it  with  the  eye  of  the  spirit  and  under- 
stands it  in  its  entirety,  so  he  can  see  that  in  very 
truth  all  is  well — not  that  all  will  be  well  at  some 
remote  period,  but  that  even  now  at  this  moment,  in 
the  midst  of  incessant  striving  and  apparent  evil,  the 
mighty  current  of  evolution  is  still  flowing,  and  so 
all  is  well  because  all  is  moving  on  in  perfect  order 
towards  the  final  goal. 

Raising  his  consciousness  thus  above  the  storm  and 
stress  of  wordly  life,  he  recognizes  what  used  to  seem 
to  be  evil,  and  notes  how  it  is  apparently  pressing 
backwards  against  the  great  stream  of  progress ;  but 
he  also  sees  that  the  onward  sweep  of  the  divine  law 
of  evolution  bears  the  same  relation  to  this  super- 
ficial evil  as  does  the  tremendous  torrent  of  Niagara 
to  the  fleckings  of  foam  upon  its  surface.  So  while 
he  sympathizes  deeply  with  all  who  suffer,  he  yet 
realizes  what  will  be  the  end  of  that  suffering,  and 
so  for  him  despair  or  hopelessness  is  impossible.  He 
applies  this  consideration  to  his  own  sorrows  and 
troubles,  as  well  as  to  those  of  the  world,  and  there- 
fore one  great  result  of  his  Theosophy  is  a  perfect 
serenity — even  more  than  that,  a  perpetual  cheerful- 
ness and  joy. 

For  him  there  is  an  utter  absence  of  worry,  because 


13b  A  TEXTBOOK  OP  THEOSOPHY 

in  truth  there  is  nothing  left  to  worry  about,  since 
he  knows  that  all  must  be  well.  His  higher  Science 
makes  him  a  confirmed  optimist,  for  it  shows  him 
that  whatever  of  evil  there  may  be  in  any  person  or 
in  any  movement,  it  is  of  necessity  temporary,  be- 
cause it  is  opposed  to  the  resistless  stream  of  evolu- 
tion; whereas  whatever  is  good  in  any  person  or  in 
any  movement  must  necessarily  be  persistent  and 
useful,  because  it  has  behind  it  the  omnipotence  of 
that  current,  and  therefore  it  must  abide  and  it 
must  prevail. 

Yet  it  must  not  for  a  moment  be  supposed  that 
because  he  is  so  fully  assured  of  the  final  triumph 
of  good  he  remains  careless  or  unmoved  by  the  evils 
which  exist  in  the  world  around  him.  He  knows  that 
it  is  his  duty  to  combat  these  to  the  utmost  of  his 
power,  because  in  doing  this  he  is  working  upon 
the  side  of  the  great  evolutionary  force,  and  is  bring- 
ing nearer  the  time  of  its  ultimate  victory.  None 
will  be  more  active  than  he  in  laboring  for  the  good, 
even  though  he  is  absolutely  free  from  the  feeling  of 
helplessness  and  hopelessness  which  so  often  op- 
presses those  who  are  striving  to  help  their  fellow- 
men. 

Another  most  valuable  result  of  his  Theosophical 
study  is  the  absence  of  fear.  Many  people  are  con- 
stantly anxious  or  worried  about  something  or  other; 
they  are  fearing  lest  this  or  that  should  happen  to 
them,  lest  this  or  that  combination  may  fail,  and  so 
all  the  while  they  are  in  a  condition  of  unrest;  and 
most  serious  of  all  for  many  is  the  fear  of  death. 
For  the  Theosophist  the  whole  of  this  feeling  is  en- 


THE  EESULT  OF  THEOSOPHICAL  STUDY         137 

tirely  swept  away.  He  realizes  the  great  truth  of  re- 
incarnation. He  knows  that  he  has  often  before  laid 
aside  physical  bodies,  and  so  he  sees  that  death  is  no 
more  than  sleep — that  just  as  sleep  comes  in  be- 
tween our  days  of  work  and  gives  us  rest  and  re- 
freshment, so  between  these  days  of  labor  here  on 
earth,  which  we  call  lives,  there  comes  a  long  night 
of  astral  and  of  heavenly  life  to  give  us  rest  and  re- 
freshment and  to  help  us  on  our  way. 

To  the  Theosophist  death  is  simply  the  laying  aside 
for  a  time  of  this  robe  of  flesh.  He  knows  that  it  is 
his  duty  to  preserve  the  bodily  vesture  as  long  as 
possible,  and  gain  through  it  all  the  experience  he 
can ;  but  when  the  time  comes  for  him  to  lay  it  down 
he  will  do  so  thankfully,  because  he  knows  that  the 
next  stage  will  be  a  much  pleasanter  one  than  this. 
Thus  he  will  have  no  fear  of  death,  although  he  re- 
alizes that  he  must  live  his  life  to  the  appointed  end, 
because  he  is  here  for  the  purpose  of  progress,  and 
that  progress  is  the  one  truly  momentous  matter. 
His  whole  conception  of  life  is  different;  the  object 
is  not  to  earn  so  much  money,  not  to  obtain  such 
and  such  a  position;  the  one  important  thing  is  to 
carry  out  the  divine  plan.  He  knows  that  for  this 
he  is  here,  and  that  everything  else  must  give  way 
to  it. 

Utterly  free  also  is  he  from  any  religious  fears 
or  worries  or  troubles.  All  such  things  are  swept 
aside  for  him,  because  he  sees  clearly  that  progress 
towards  the  highest  is  the  divine  Will  for  us,  that  we 
cannot  escape  from  that  progress,  and  that  whatever 
comes  in  our  way  and  whatever  happens  to  us  is 


138        A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

meant  to  help  us  along  that  line;  that  we  ourselves 
are  absolutely  the  only  people  who  can  delay  our 
advance.  No  longer  does  he  trouble  and  fear  about 
himself.  He  simply  goes  on  and  does  the  duty  which 
comes  nearest  in  the  best  way  that  he  can,  confident 
that  if  he  does  this  all  will  be  well  for  him  without  his 
perpetual  worrying.  He  is  satisfied  quietly  to  do  his 
work  and  to  try  to  help  his  fellows  in  the  race, 
knowing  that  the  great  divine  Power  behind  will 
press  him  onward  slowly  and  steadily,  and  do  for 
him  all  that  can  be  done,  so  long  as  his  face  is  set 
steadfastly  in  the  right  direction,  so  long  as  he  does 
all  that  he  reasonably  can. 

Since  he  knows  that  we  are  all  part  of  one  great 
evolution  and  all  literally  the  children  of  one  father, 
he  sees  that  the  universal  brotherhood  of  humanity  is 
no  mere  poetical  conception,  but  a  definite  fact;  not 
a  dream  of  something  which  is  to  be  in  the  dim  dis- 
tance of  Utopia,  but  a  condition  existing  here  and 
now.  The  certainty  of  this  all-embracing  fraternity 
gives  him  a  wider  outlook  upon  life  and  a  broad 
impersonal  point  of  view  from  which  to  regard 
everything.  He  realizes  that  the  true  interests  of  all 
are  in  fact  identical,  and  that  no  man  can  fever 
make  real  gain  for  himself  at  the  cost  of  loss  or  suf- 
fering to  some  one  else.  This  is  not  to  him  an  ar- 
ticle of  religious  belief,  but  a  scientific  fact  proved 
to  him  by  his  study.  He  sees  that  since  humanity  is 
literally  a  whole,  nothing  which  injures  one  man  can 
ever  be  really  for  the  good  of  any  other,  for  the 
harm  done  influences  not  only  the  doer  but  also 
those  who  are  about  him. 


THE  EESULT  OF  THEOSOPHICAL  STUDY         139 

He  knows  that  the  only  true  advantage  for  him 
is  that  benefit  which  he  shares  with  all.  He  sees 
that  any  advance  which  he  is  able  to  make  in  the 
way  of  spiritual  progress  or  development  is  some- 
thing secured  not  for  himself  alone  but  for  others. 
If  he  gains  knowledge  or  self-control,  he  assuredly 
acquires  much  for  himself,  yet  he  takes  nothing 
away  from  any  one  'else,  but  on  the  contrary  he 
helps  and  strengthens  others.  Cognizant  as  he  is 
of  the  absolute  spiritual  unity  of  humanity,  he  knows 
thatj  even  in  this  lower  world,  no  true  profit  can  be 
made  by  one  man  which  is  not  made  in  the  name  of 
and  for  the  sake  of  humanity;  that  one  man's  prog- 
ress must  be  a  lifting  of  the  burden  of  all  others; 
that  one  man's  advance  in  spiritual  things  means  a 
very  slight  yet  not  imperceptible  advance  to  hu- 
manity as  a  whole;  that  every  one  who  bears  suf- 
fering and  sorrow  nobly  in  his  struggle  towards  the 
light  is  lifting  a  little  of  the  heavy  load  of  the  sor- 
row and  suffering  of  his  brothers  as  well. 

Because  he  recognizes  this  brotherhood  not  merely 
as  a  hope  cherished  by  despairing  men,  but  as  a  defi- 
nite fact  following  in  scientific  series  from  all  other 
facts;  because  he  sees  this  as  an  absolute  certainty, 
his  attitude  towards  all  those  around  him  changes 
radically.  It  becomes  a  posture  ever  of  helpfulness, 
ever  of  the  deepest  sympathy,  for  he  sees  that  noth- 
ing which  clashes  with  their  higher  interests  can  be 
the  right  thing  for  him  to  do,  or  can  be  good  for 
him  in  any  way. 

It  naturally  follows  that  he  becomes  filled  with  the 
widest  possible  tolerance  and  charity.  He  cannot  but 


140  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

be  always  tolerant,  because  his  philosophy  shows  him 
that  it  matters  little  what  a  man  believes,  so  long  as 
he  is  a  good  man  and  true.  Charitable  also  he  must 
be,  because  his  wider  knowledge  enables  him  to  make 
allowances  for  many  things  which  the  ordinary  man 
does  not  understand.  The  standard  of  the  Theoso- 
phist  as  to  right  and  wrong  is  always  higher  than 
that  of  the  less  instructed  man,  yet  he  is  far  gentler 
than  the  latter  in  his  feeling  towards  the  sinner, 
because  he  comprehends  more  of  human  nature.  He 
realizes  how  the  sin  appeared  to  the  sinner  at  the 
moment  of  its  commission,  and  so  he  makes  more  al- 
lowance than  is  ever  made  by  the  man  who  is  ignor- 
ant of  all  this. 

He  goes  further  than  tolerance,  charity,  sympathy ; 
he  feels  positive  love  towards  mankind,  and  that 
leads  him  to  adopt  a  position  of  watchful  helpfulness. 
He  feels  that  every  contact  with  others  is  for  him 
an  opportunity,  and  the  additional  knowledge  which 
his  study  has  brought  to  him  enables  him  to  give 
advice  or  help  in  almost  any  case  which  comes  be- 
fore him.  Not  that  he  is  perpetually  thrusting  his 
opinions  upon  other  people.  On  the  contrary,  he 
observes  that  to  do  this  is  one  of  the  commonest  mis- 
takes made  by  the  uninstructed.  He  knows  that  ar- 
gument is  a  foolish  waste  of  energy,  and  therefore  he 
declines  to  argue.  If  anyone  desires  from  him  ex- 
planation or  advice  he  is  more  than  willing  to  give 
it,  yet  he  has  no  sort  of  wish  to  convert  anyone  ^Ise 
to  his  own  way  of  thinking. 

In  every  relation  of  life  this  idea  of  helpfulness 
comes  into  play,  not  only  with  regard  to  his  fellow- 


THE  KESULT  OF  THEOSOPHICAL  STUDY         141 

men  but  also  in  connection  with  the  vast  animal 
kingdom  which  surrounds  him.  Units  of  this  king- 
dom are  often  brought  into  close  relation  with  man, 
and  this  is  for  him  an  opportunity  of  doing  some- 
thing for  them.  The  Theosophist  recognizes  that 
these  are  also  his  brothers,  even  though  they  may  be 
younger  brothers,  and  that  he  owes  a  fraternal  duty 
to  them  also — so  to  act  and  so  to  think  that  his  re- 
lation with  them  shall  be  always  for  their  good  and 
never  for  their  harm. 

Pre-eminently  and  above  all,  his  Theosophy  is  to 
him  a  doctrine  of  common  sense.  It  puts  before  him, 
as  far  as  he  can  at  present  know  them,  the  facts 
about  God  and  man  and  the  relations  between  them; 
then  he  proceeds  to  take  these  facts  into  account  and 
to  act  in  relation  to  them  with  ordinary  reason  and 
common  sense.  He  regulates  his  life  according  to 
the  laws  of  evolution  which  it  has  taught  him,  and 
this  gives  him  a  totally  different  standpoint,  and  a 
touchstone  by  which  to  try  everything — his  own 
thoughts  and  feelings,  and  his  own  actions  first  of 
all,  and  then  those  things  which  come  before  him  in 
the  world  outside  himself. 

Always  he  applies  this  criterion:  Is  the  thing 
right  or  wrong,  does  it  help  evolution  or  does  it 
hinder  it?  If  a  thought  or  a  feeling  arises  within 
himself,  he  sees  at  once  by  this  test  whether  it  is  one 
he  ought  to  encourage.  If  it  be  for  the  greatest 
good  of  the  greatest  number  then  all  is  well;  if  it 
may  hinder  or  cause  harm  to  any  being  in  its  prog- 
ress, then  it  is  evil  and  to  be  avoided.  Exactly  the 
same  reason  holds  good  if  he  is  called  upon  to  de- 


142  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

cide  with  regard  to  anything  outside  himself.  If  from 
that  point  of  view  a  thing  be  a  good  thing,  then  he 
can  conscientiously  support  it;  if  not,  then  it  is  not 
for  him. 

For  him  the  question  of  personal  interest  does  not 
come  into  the  case  at  all.  He  thinks  simply  of  the 
good  of  evolution  as  a  whole.  This  gives  him  a 
definite  foothold  and  clear  criterion,  and  removes 
from  him  altogether  the  pain  of  indecision  and  hesi- 
tation. The  Will  of  the  Deity  is  man's  evolution; 
whatever  therefore  helps  on  that  evolution  must  be 
good;  whatever  stands  in  the  way  of  it  delays  it, 
that  thing  must  be  wrong,  'even  though  it  may  have 
on  its  side  all  the  weight  of  public  opinion  and  im- 
memorial tradition. 

Knowing  that  the  true  man  is  the  ego  and  not  the 
body,  he  sees  that  it  is  the  life  of  the  ego  only  which 
is  really  of  moment,  and  that  everything  connected 
with  the  body  must  unhesitatingly  be  subordinated 
to  those  higher  interests.  He  recognizes  that  this 
earth-life  is  given  to  him  for  the  purpose  of  progress, 
and  that  that  progress  is  the  one  important  thing. 
The  real  purpose  of  his  life  is  the  unfoldment  of  his 
powers  as  an  ego,  the  development  of  his  character. 
He  knows  that  there  must  be  evolvement  not  only 
of  the  physical  body  but  also  of  the  mental  nature,  of 
the  mind,  and  of  the  spiritual  perceptions.  He  sees 
that  nothing  short  of  absolute  perfection  is  expected 
of  him  in  connection  with  this  development;  that 
all  power  with  regard  to  it  is  in  his  own  hands;  that 
he  has  everlasting  time  before  him  in  which  to  attain 


THE  EESULT  OF  THEOSOPHICAL  STUDY         143 

this  perfection,  but  that  the  sooner  it  is  gained  the 
happier  and  more  useful  will  he  be. 

He  recognizes  his  life  as  nothing  but  a  day  at 
school,  and  his  physical  body  as  a  temporary  vesture 
assumed  for  the  purpose  of  learning  through  it.  He 
knows  at  once  that  this  purpose  of  learning  lessons 
is  the  only  one  of  any  real  importance,  and  that  the 
man  who  allows  himself  to  be  diverted  from  that 
purpose  by  any  consideration  whatever  is  acting 
with  inconceivable  stupidity.  To  him  the  life  de- 
voted exclusively  to  physical  objects,  to  the  acquisi- 
tion of  wealth  or  fame,  appears  the  merest  child  V 
play — a  senseless  sacrifice  of  all  that  is  really  worth 
having  for  the  sake  of  a  few  moments'  gratification 
of  the  lower  part  of  his  nature.  He  "sets  his  af- 
fection on  things  above  and  not  on  things  of  thfc 
earth, ' '  not  only  because  he  sees  this  to  be  the  right 
course  of  action,  but  because  he  realizes  so  clearly 
the  valuelessness  of  these  things  of  earth.  He  always 
tries  to  take  the  higher  point  of  view,  for  he  knows 
that  the  lower  is  utterly  unreliable — that  the  lower 
desires  and  feelings  gather  round  him  like  a  dense 
fog,  and  make  it  impossible  for  him  to  see  anything 
clearly  from  that  level. 

Whenever  he  finds  a  struggle  going  on  within  him 
he  remembers  that  he  himself  is  the  higher,  and  that 
this  which  is  the  lower  is  not  the  real  self,  but  merely 
an  uncontrolled  part  of  one  of  its  vehicles.  He 
knows  that  though  he  may  fall  a  thousand  times  on  the 
way  towards  his  goal,  his  reason  for  trying  to  reach 
it  remains  just  as  strong  after  the  thousandth  fall 
as  it  was  in  the  beginning,  so  that  it  would  not  only 


144  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

be  useless  but  unwise  and  wrong  to  give  way  to  des- 
pondency and  hopelessness. 

He  begins  his  journey  upon  the  road  of  progress 
at  once — not  only  because  he  knows  that  it  is  far 
easier  for  him  now  than  it  will  be  if  he  leaves  the 
effort  until  later,  but  chiefly  because  if  he  makes  the 
endeavor  now  and  succeeds  in  achieving  some  prog- 
ress, if  he  rises  thereby  to  some  higher  level,  he  is 
in  a  position  to  hold  out  a  helping  hand  to  those  who 
have  not  yet  reached  even  that  step  on  the  ladder 
which  he  has  gained.  In  that  way  he  takes  a  part, 
however  -humble  it  may  be,  in  the  great  divin'e  work 
of  evolution. 

He  knows  that  he  has  arrived  at  his  present  posi- 
tion only  by  a  slow  process  of  growth,  and  so  he 
does  not  expect  instantaneous  attainment  of  perfec- 
tion. He  sees  how  inevitable  is  the  great  law  of 
cause  and  effect,  and  that  when  he  once  grasps  the 
working  of  that  law  he  can  use  it  intelligently  in 
regard  to  mental  and  moral  development,  just  as  in 
the  physical  world  we  can  employ  for  our- own  as- 
sistance those  laws  of  nature  the  action  of  which  we 
Have  learnt  to  understand. 

Understanding  what  death  is,  he  knows  that  there 
.can  be  no  need  to  fear  it  or  to  mourn  over  it, 
whether  it  comes  to  himself  or  to  those  whom  he 
loves.  It  has  come  to  them  all  often  before,  so  there 
is  nothing  unfamiliar  about  it.  He  sees  death  simply 
as  a  promotion  from  a  life  which  is  more  than  half 
physical  to  one  which  is  wholly  superior,  so  for  him- 
self he  unfeignedly  welcomes  it;  and  even  when  it 
comes  to  those  whom  he  loves,  he  recognizes  at  once 


THE  EESULT  OF  THEOSOPHIOAL  STUDY         145 

the  advantage  for  them,  even  though  toe  cannot  but 
feel  a  pang  of  regret  that  he  should  be  temporarily 
separated  from  them  so  far  as  the  physical  world  is 
concerned.  But  he  knows  that  the  so-called  dead  are 
near  him  still,  and  that  he  has  only  to  cast  off  for 
a  time  his  physical  body  in  sleep  in  order  to  stand 
side  by  side  with  them  as  before. 

He  sees  clearly  that  the  world  is  one,  and  that 
the  same  divine  laws  rule  the  whole  of  it,  whether 
it  be  visible  or  invisible  to  physical  sight.  So  he  has 
no  feeling  of  nervousness  or  strangeness  in  passing 
from  one  part  of  it  to  another,  and  no  feeling  of  un- 
certainty as  to  what  he  will  find  on  the  other  side 
of  the  veil.  He  knows  that  in  that  higher  life  there 
opens  before  him  a  splendid  vista  of  opportunities 
both  for  acquiring  fresh  knowledge  and  for  doing 
useful  work;  that  life  away  from  this  dense  body 
has  a  vividness  and  a  brilliancy  to  which  all  earthly 
enjoyment  is  as  nothing;  and  so  through  his  clear 
knowledge  and  calm  confidence  the  power  of  the  end- 
less life  shines  out  upon  all  those  around  him. 

Doubt  as  to  his  future  is  for  him  impossible,  for 
just  as  by  looking  back  on  the  savage  he  realizes  that 
which  he  was  in  the  past,  so  by  looking  to  the  great- 
est and  wisest  of  mankind  he  realizes  what  he  shall 
be  in  the  future.  He  sees  an  unbroken  chain  of  de- 
velopment, a  ladder  of  perfection  rising  steadily  be- 
fore him,  yet  with  human  beings  upon  every  step  of 
it,  so  that  he  knows  that  those  steps  are  possible  for 
him  to  climb.  It  is  just  because  of  the  unehange- 
ableness  of  the  great  law  of  cause  and  effect  that 
he  finds  himself  able  to  climb  that  ladder,  because, 


146  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

since  the  law  works  always  in  the  same  way,  he  can 
depend  upon  it  and  he  can  use  it,  just  as  he  uses  the 
laws  of  nature  in  the  physical  worlds.  His  knowl- 
edge of  this  law  brings  to  him  a  sense  of  perspective, 
and  shows  him  that  if  something  comes  to  him,  it 
comes  because  he  has  deserved  it  as  a  consequence  of 
action  which  he  has  committed,  of  words  which  he 
has  spoken,  of  thought  to  which  he  has  given  harbor 
in  previous  days  or  in  earlier  lives.  He  comprehends 
that  all  affliction  is  of  the  nature  of  the  payment  of 
a  debt,  and  therefore  when  he  has  to  meet  with  the 
troubles  of  life  he  takes  them  and  uses  them  as  a  les- 
son, because  he  understands  why  they  have  come 
and  is  glad  of  the  opportunity  which  they  give  him  to 
pay  off  something  of  his  obligations. 

Again,  and  in  yet  another  way,  does  he  take  them 
as  an  opportunity,  for  he  sees  that  there  is  another 
side  to  them  if  he  meets  them  in  the  right  way.  He 
spends  no  time  in  bearing  prospective  burdens.  When 
trouble  comes  to  him  he.  does  not  aggravate  it  by 
foolish  repining  but  sets  himself  to  endure  so  much 
of  it  as  is  inevitable,  with  patience  and  with  fortitude. 
Not  that  he  submits  himself  to  it  as  a  fatalist  might, 
for  he  takes  adverse  circumstances  as  an  incentive 
to  such  development  as  may  enable  him  to  transcend 
them,  and  thus  out  of  long-past  evil  he  brings  forth 
a  seed  of  future  growth.  For  in  the  very  act  of  pay- 
ing the  outstanding  debt  he  develops  qualities  of 
courage  and  resolution  that  will  stand  him  in  good 
stead  through  all  the  ages  that  are  to  come. 

He  is  distinguishable  from  the  rest  of  the  world 
by  his  perennial  cheerfulness,  his  undaunted  courage 


THE  RESULT  OF  THEOSOPHIGAL  STUDY         145 

under  difficulties,  and  his  ready  sympathy  and  help- 
fulness; yet  he  is  at  the  same  time  emphatically  a 
man  who  takes  life  seriously,  who  recognizes  that 
there  is  much  for  everyone  to  do  in  the  world,  and  that 
there  is  no  time  to  waste.  He  knows  with  utter  cer- 
tainty that  he  not  only  makes  his  own  destiny  but 
also  gravely  affects  that  of  others  around  him,  and 
thus  he  perceives  how  weighty  a  responsibility  at- 
tends the  use  of  his  power. 

He  knows  that  thoughts  are  things  and  that  it  is 
easily  possible  to  do  great  harm  or  great  good  by 
their  means.  He  knows  that  no  man  liveth  to  him- 
self, for  his  every  thought  acts  upon  others  as  well; 
that  the  vibrations  which  he  sends  forth  from  his 
mind  and  from  his  mental  nature  are  reproducing 
themselves  in  the  minds  and  the  mental  natures  of 
other  men,  so  that  he  is  a  source  either  of  mental 
health  or  of  mental  ill  to  all  with  whom  he  comes  in 
contact. 

This  at  once  imposes  upon  him  a  far  higher  code 
of  social  ethics  than  that  which  is  known  to  the  outer 
world,  for  he  knows  that  he  must  control  not  only 
his  acts  and  his  words,  but  also  his  thoughts,  since 
they  may  produce  effects  more  serious  and  more  far- 
reaching  than  their  outward  expression  in  the  physi- 
cal world.  He  knows  that  even  when  a  man  is  not 
in  the  least  thinking  of  others,  he  yet  inevitably  af- 
fects them  for  good  or  for  evil.  In  addition  to  this 
unconscious  action  of  his  thought  upon  others  he  also 
employs  it  consciously  for  good.  He  sets  currents  in 
motion  to  carry  mental  help  and  comfort  to  many 


148  A  TEXTBOOK  OF  THEOSOPHY 

a  suffering  friend,  and  in  this  way  he  finds  a  whole 
new  world  of  usefulness  opening  before  him. 

He  ranges  himself  ever  on  the  side  of  the  higher 
rather  than  the  lower  thought,  the  nobler  rather  than 
the  baser.  He  deliberately  takes  the  optimistic 
rather  than  the  pessimistic  view  of  everything,  the 
helpful  rather  than  the  cynical,  because  he  knows 
that  to  be  fundamentally  the  true  view.  By  looking 
continually  for  the  good  in  everything  that  he  may 
endeavor  to  strengthen  it,  by  striving  always  to  help 
and  never  to  hinder,  he  becomes  ever  of  greater  use 
to  his  fellow-men,  and  is  thus  in  his  small  way  a  co- 
worker  with  the  splendid  scheme  of  evolution.  He 
forgets  himself  utterly  and  lives  but  for  the  sake  of 
others,  realizing  himself  as  a  part  of  that  scheme; 
he  also  realizes  the  God  within  him,  and  learns  to 
become  ever  a  truer  expression  of  Him,  and  thus  in 
fulfilling  God's  will  he  is  not  only  blessed  himself, 
but  becomes  a  blessing  to  all. 


For  a  Study  of  Theosophy. 

STUDY  COURSE  NO.  1 

Man  and  His  Bodies.    Annie  Besant. 

Man's  Life  in  This  and  Other  Worlds.    Annie  Besant. 

Astral  Plane,  The.     C.  W.  Leadbeater. 

Devachanic  Plane,  The.     C.  W.  Leadbeater. 

Karma.     Annie  Besant. 

Seven  Principles  of  Man,  The.    Annie  Besant. 

Text  Book  of  Theosophy,  A.     C.  W.  Leadbeater. 

Clairvoyance.     C.  W.  Leadbeater. 

Dreams.     C.  W.  Leadbeater. 

In  the  Outer  Court.     Annie  Besant. 

Masters,  The.    Annie  Besant. 

Death — and  After?     Annie  Besant. 

Devotional — 

At  the  Feet  of  the  Master. 

STUDY  COURSE  NO.  2 

Ancient  Wisdom,  The.    Annie  Besant. 

Thought  Power.    Annie  Besant. 

Thought  Forms.    Annie  Besant  and  C.  W.  Leadbeater. 

Man  Visible  and  Invisible.    C.  W.  Leadbeater. 

Study  in  Consciousness,  A.    Annie  Besant. 

Path  of  Discipleship,  The.    Annie  Besant. 

Man:  Whence,  How  and  Whither?     Annie  Besant.  and  C 

W.  Leadbeater. 

Inner  Life,  The.  Vols.  I  and  II.   C.  W.  Leadbeater. 
Evolution  of  Life  and  Form,  The.     Annie  Besant. 
Introduction  to  Yoga,  An.    Annie  Besant. 
Devotional — 

Light  on  the  Path. 

Send  for  our  Catalogue 

THE  THEOSOPHICAL  PUBLISHING  HOUSE 

Krotona,  Hollywood,  Los  Angeles, 

California. 


Other  Books  by  C.  W.  Lcadbeater 


The  Astral  Plane:  Its  Scenery,  Inhabitants  and  Phenom- 
ena. Theosophical  Manual  No.  V. 
The  Christian  Creed. 
Clairvoyance. 

The  Devachanic  Plane.    Theosophical  Manual  No.  VI. 
Dreams. 

The  Hidden  Side  of  Things.      (2  vols.) 
The  Inner  Life.     (2  vols.) 
Invisible  Helpers. 

Life  After  Death  and  How  Theosophy  Unveils  It. 
Man  Visible  and  Invisible. 
The  Other  Side  of  Death. 
An  Outline  of  Theosophy. 
The  Perfume  of  Egypt. 
Some  Glimpses  of  Occultism. 
Starlight. 
Thought  Forms. 

Pamphlets 

The  Fourth  Dimension. 

The  Home  of  the  New  Subrace. 

An  Occult  View  of  the  War. 

Our  Relation  to  Children. 

To  Those  Who  Mourn. 

The  World  Teacher  Series:  Christ,  the  World  Saviour; 

The   Gospel   of  the  New  Ere;  end   Why  e  Great 

World  Teecfeer? 


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